Wolverine Hearing in Colorado

This is a very brief alert for wolverine-interested people who are in Colorado. The US Fish and Wildlife Service will hold a public hearing on the proposed listing rule this coming Tuesday, March 19th. The hearing will be held at the Hampton Inn in Lakewood, Colorado beginning with an informational session from 2:00 – 5:00 pm, with a public comment session to follow in the evening. You must sign up to make a comment; sign-up starts at 6:00 pm.

Several environmental NGOs, including Defenders of Wildlife and Rocky Mountain Wild, will host an event at the same location to discuss wolverine science and conservation, the 10j designation, and the implications of the proposed listing rule and reintroduction. They will provide talking points and synopses of the major issues and opportunities for use during the public comment session.

I haven’t been involved with the development of these materials, and I don’t know what they say, but I have seen an alert from a snowmobile interest group asking for turnout at the hearing to counter the influence of “misinformed” environmentalists. I’m confident that the environmental groups in Colorado will encourage everyone to take a measured approach to the discussion. The snowmobilers are concerned that environmentalists will try to use wolverines to enforce restrictions on recreation, although as far as we know, motorized recreation does not have an effect on wolverines. We have two choices here: pick a fight over land use, based on scientifically shaky “feelings” that wolverines must be influenced by snowmobiles (despite lack of evidence); or try a different approach. I recommend that wolverine advocates take the opportunity to emphasize that wolverines, skiers, and snowmobilers depend on the same resource – snow – and that we have a shared interest in figuring out how to protect that resource, and the associated ecosystem. That means building broad-based coalitions to address climate change. Wolverines are a test case for a new era of conservation and we need to move that dialogue forward, immediately.

I wish I could be there, but I will be somewhere over the Pacific, en route to Mongolia, as the lead scientist on a National Geographic-sponsored expedition that we hope will collect DNA samples and establish some baseline information on distribution of wolverines within the Darhad region. More on this soon.

 

Pointless Petition

Yesterday, this petition was circulated to a number of people involved in wolverine conservation:

The email that accompanied the petition ran as follows:

Dear…..

Wolverines have been on the U.S. Endangered Species List for almost two years. But apparently that doesn’t matter in Montana — the only state where it’s still legal to trap them.

Tell the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission to not open wolverine trapping season!

There are no more than 300 wolverines left in the West, and warming temperatures in future years will only reduce the population further. Of those, up to two-thirds live in Montana. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that wolverines if aren’t protected in Montana, it”s almost as if they aren’t protected at all.

Trapping season starts Dec. 1. That gives us just over a month to get through to state wildlife officials.

Urge wildlife officials to protect endangered species and shut down this year’s wolverine trapping season.

This petition contains a couple of glaring errors, as well as some questionable statements. First of all, wolverines have never been on the endangered list, and the implication that Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks would continue to trap an endangered species does a disservice to the attention that this agency pays to maintaining Montana’s wildlife. Second, we don’t know how many wolverines actually live in the Rockies, and making appeals based on numbers is not the way to discuss wolverines – or, I would contend, any wildlife species. These things should be discussed in terms of population trends, demographics, and ecological process, not numbers. (And the cut-and-paste of the earlier inaccurate statement that wolverines were once “prolific across the West” is also aggravating, if strictly on vocabulary grounds, but the misuse of vocabulary has implications for what is being said about past and current population trends.)

I’m asking people NOT to sign this petition. I am fully in favor of individuals expressing their opinions, but non-experts make appeals based purely on emotion, and when those appeals are inaccurate to the greatest degree, they do more harm than good. These acontextual animal-rights based pleas tend not to register with decision-makers, and when they are as full of errors as this one is, they make all of us who are contextually and scientifically working on this issue look bad. And they make the originators and signers of such petitions into laughingstocks, further discrediting the idea that people who attach themselves to such efforts have even the remotest clue what is going on.

If you want Montana to shut its trapping season prior to a listing decision – I’m strongly doubtful that they will, but there’s always a chance, and again, I’m fully in favor of freedom of expression – please write them a respectful letter that discusses the science. Do not accuse them of incompetence (this does nothing to endear you to the people you’re trying to influence); this includes subtle accusations such as use of the phrases “get through to” and “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist…” And do not get into your moral position on trapping. These things are counterproductive. (If you’ve already signed….I don’t mean to make you feel badly. Just read things carefully next time.)

I’m going to write more about this soon – I’ve been promising a series on the science/ advocacy interface for awhile, but it will be posted over the next week. I am sure that people who are inured to the usual script for “action” have trouble understanding my objections to these tactics, and I want to explain in a more thorough way why the script needs to be rewritten in the case of wolverine conservation. For now, though, take my word for it, and please don’t engage with these efforts.

(While I’m ranting about other people’s inaccuracies, I should acknowledge that this petition did make me realize a mistake of my own; I previously stated that Montana’s trapping season begins on December 15th. It does in fact begin on the 1st. I’m mildly numerically dyslexic, and the season ends February 15th, so that was the number that stuck in my head. I don’t want people to think I’m hypocritical in throwing a fit about other people’s errors in precision while not acknowledging my own.)

Montana Judge Upholds Wolverine Listing Lawsuit

Very briefly, here’s something for people following wolverine news in minute detail. Apparently a group of environmental organizations sued the US Fish and Wildlife Service, asserting that the warranted-but-precluded decision of 2010 was incorrect because it evaluated Montana’s trapping season as only a secondary threat to the wolverine population in the Lower 48 (climate change being the primary threat.) The USFWS responded by urging dismissal of the lawsuit since they are already on track to issue a final decision on the wolverine’s status by sometime in 2013, possibly as early as January. A judge refused to dismiss the lawsuit yesterday, but ruled that the lawsuit will be considered moot if the USFWS issues a decision by January 18th, 2013. The judge also ordered that the USFWS must tell the court whether it will issue a January decision on or before December 14th – the day before Montana’s trapping season begins.

It’s exciting to have a potential date on which the decision will be issued, and I look forward to hearing whether this is a definite deadline. The actual media article – widely published in news outlets throughout the west – is pretty short, so we’ll have to wait for more information. There’s are a few more details at Ralph Maughn’s Wildlife News blog. Maughn’s post discusses some of the reasoning behind this lawsuit and the timing – mainly having to do with the implications of both the wolverine trapping season, and possible accidental deaths as wolf trapping is opened statewide. I don’t have time or inclination for further commentary on trapping, advocacy, strategy, and lawsuits, so I’ll leave you all to your own opinions. I will say, though, that I was recently face-to-face with a wolf trap out in the Mongolian countryside, and the park ranger with whom I was talking at the time said that wolverines are caught, with some regularity, in wolf traps here. I’ve heard the same story again and again from herders for the past three years. So while I’m not sure that constant lawsuits are the best way to go, there may be some cause to worry about wolverines getting into wolf traps. Of course, that assumes that wolverines and wolves are using habitat the same way in Mongolia and in the US, which doesn’t seem to be the case. I hope wolverines stay well out of the way as wolf trapping goes forward in the States.

Potential Change to Polar Bear ESA Rule

When the polar bear was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2008, the Bush Administration issued a rule stating that the ESA couldn’t be used to regulate greenhouse gas emissions even if a listing was due to climate change. This rule represented a blow to conservationists, rendering the ESA incapable of being invoked to address threats to climate sensitive wildlife. The polar bear case was complicated by a number of other factors including the threats posed by energy development in the Arctic, the politics of hunting and indigenous rights in Canada, and the clear reluctance of Bush Administration officials to list any species without the threat of legal action, and even then to do so minimally and grudgingly. But reduced to essentials, the decision meant that the polar bear and its fellow climate sensitive species – notably, the wolverine, the pika, and the walrus, all of which have been considered for listing between 2008 and the present – would be excluded from the protections that the ESA offers to species threatened by in-habitat issues like point source pollution, destruction of habitat, and over-harvesting.

Last week, in response to a lawsuit by four environmental organizations, a district judge handed down a ruling that the government’s failure to conduct an environmental review before issuing the rule constituted an error, and sent the decision back to the government to obtain a review. This decision (summarized by NPR, detailed in an article in the LA Times, and commented upon by the environmental groups involved) opens a tiny window through which environmental groups might maneuver to obtain stronger protections for climate sensitive wildlife.

Unfortunately, though, the details of the decision suggest that this won’t happen. The judge ruled that the lack of an environmental review was a serious problem, but affirmed that the government has the right to decide what types of harm are allowable to species listed as ‘threatened’ rather than ‘endangered.’ The polar bear population, classified at this lower level of risk, is deemed robust enough to withstand further losses, and therefore a population reduction due to climate change is – officially, anyway – not a cause for concern. (The environmental groups sued to upgrade the polar bear’s status to endangered earlier this year, but lost.) The Obama administration has until November 17th to submit a timeline for writing the review.

What does this mean for wolverines? I’ve devoted previous posts to the paradox of the push to list the species, and although I believe that the scientific evidence states that the wolverine should be on the list, I’m torn at the thought of spending huge amounts of money on a species when only the proximate causes of the threat are being addressed; if that money could go to actually saving a species facing in situ threats, maybe it would be better to put the money towards that species. But if the polar bear rule is struck down and the ESA is enabled as a tool for regulating ex situ threats like greenhouse gas emissions, I can stop coping with this split-personality problem and cheer for listing without any reservation. (Or, of course, if we actually adequately fund the USFWS, we could work on saving all the species, thus likewise eliminating conflict over the issue….)

Gulos are currently candidate species for listing, with a final decision due by 2013. For so many reasons, I wish the decision on the polar bear rule had come down earlier, not in the run-up to an election year; the timing means that the decision will be more subject than usual to the pull of politics. Regardless, though, it at least represents an acknowledgement that the rule was made too hastily and warrants review. Hopefully by 2013, if the wolverine is listed, the listing will actually offer protection.

On the subject of climate change, a very short interview with climate scientist Synte Peacock highlights her interest in wolverines and her work modeling snowpack conditions in the wolverine’s North American habitat. In the ongoing process of building a chain of evidence that wolverines are threatened by climate change effects in the US, her work shows that snowpack conditions at the core of wolverine range are likely to decline over the next century. The study isn’t cheerful, but it does at least offer multiple scenarios (depending on how we act – or don’t – on the threats) and some are better than others. So that’s a (very) small bright side.

 

More on the 2013 Decision

The Missoulan devoted an article to the wolverine and its place among the candidate species up for consideration for listing under a new agreement between environmental groups and the federal government. The reporter covers both the process by which the decisions are made, and the specific challenges of protecting wolverines, highlighting the difficulty of designing studies to assess the effects of winter recreation on gulos, the even bigger difficulty of funding such studies, and the potential influence of an ‘endangered’ decision on Colorado’s reintroduction plans.

I am, literally, on my way out the door to the airport, where I will catch a plane to Khovd, in western Mongolia. From there, I’ll travel south to the fringes of the Gobi Desert, to a national park called Myangan Ugalzaat (which translates as ’1000 Argali Rams’) where a wolverine with two kits was camera-trapped by a London Zoological Society wildlife project last year. So I don’t have time to do a full analysis or commentary on the article mentioned above. Nor have I had time, in my three days back in Ulaanbaatar, to summarize what I learned during two weeks in northern Mongolia with the Tsataan/Dukha reindeer herders. Check back in about a week for some details on both these trips, and further thoughts about the ESA process and the reintroduction plans.

As a final thought, I am a big fan of This American Life, and was catching up on missed episodes over the past couple of days. I was struck by a recent story on the conflict surrounding fracking, the controversial technique by which natural gas is extracted from shale. Fracking is an environmental issue worth attention in its own right, but as the story unfolded, it also neatly encapsulated many of the broader conflicts among science, advocacy, and vested financial interests. Substitute some slightly different details, and you have a picture of all the big issues in wildlife management and conservation as well. It’s worth a listen.

Wolverine Status Decision by 2013

I came out of the mountains and returned to Ulaanbaatar two days ago to find that the US Fish and Wildlife Service has come to an agreement with the Center for Biological Diversity over a May 2011 lawsuit regarding candidate species for the Endangered Species Act, giving all candidates equal priority for a decision on status. The wolverine is among the candidate species initially excluded from the review but now included, with an estimated decision date of 2013.

The initial May 2011 agreement between the Obama administration and environmental groups would have prioritized decisions on 251 species that were deemed warranted for protection, but precluded due to funding constraints; the USFWS would have been required to make a decision by 2016 on all species granted candidate status before November 2010. This was great news for species that had been on the waiting list since the 1970′s (though tragically ironic, of course, for the 24 that went extinct while awaiting status reviews), but it didn’t do much good for those species – gulos among them – that were given candidate status after the November 2010 cut-off date. Environmental groups, in exchange, had agreed not to begin further lawsuits against the USFWS until the reviews were complete. The Center for Biological Diversity withdrew from the May agreement, claiming that the government was attempting to evade the issue of climate sensitive wildlife; in response, a second agreement expands the review to consider all species by 2018.

This is probably good news for wolverines, since the evidence of threat due to climate change is strong. There is no guarantee, however, that the final review will actually put wolverines on the list; we can only hope that it will. Beyond 2013, regardless of whether the wolverine gains legal status as a threatened or endangered species, a massive amount of work remains before its future can be assured, and almost none of that work – reducing carbon emissions, shifting from a fossil-fuel based economy – can be instigated or enforced by the ESA. That’s a much bigger task, and it belongs to all of us.

Endangered Species Review Excludes Wolverine

On May 11th, the Obama administration announced that it would review the status of 251 candidate species for protection under the Endangered Species Act. Candidate species are those which, after scientific review, are deemed to face substantial threats, but haven’t been listed due to funding or logistical constraints within the US Fish and Wildlife Service. These species are relegated to a waiting room – some refer to it as a black hole – in which determination of their status will be made at some future date.

‘Future date’ is a slippery concept, though. Some candidate species have been waiting decades for a review – of the 251 species currently under consideration, 150 have been candidate species for at least 20 years – and a number of species have gone extinct while waiting for a decision. The state of limbo in which imperiled species currently exist is untenable; this review would give 251 species a definite status by September of 2016.

The species on the ESA’s candidate list range from insects to plants to large mammals – including, of course, the wolverine, ruled to be warranted but precluded in December of 2010. The ‘warranted’ designation stemmed from recognition of the risks of climate change to wolverines, which depend on deep spring snowpack to den, and which are only found in regions with maximum August temperatures of less than 22º C. The ‘precluded’ portion of the decision was probably partially in response to a 2008 ruling, tied to the listing of the polar bear, that stated that the ESA could not be used to force regulation of greenhouse gases. This ruling means that a listing for any species facing a primary threat from climate change is essentially symbolic, since the ESA cannot be used to change the behaviors that are threatening the species. In a choice between spending resources to list a species that can be saved by using the power of the ESA, and listing a species that we all like but that can’t be rescued under the current scope of the ESA, it makes sense to spend the resources on the species that can be saved, even if it means forgoing the emotional gratification of official recognition of threats to an amazing animal.

When the review of 251 candidate species was announced, I was pleased that the wolverine was getting a second chance at listing – even if the listing would be primarily symbolic, it would still be a wider acknowledgment of the gravity of climate change issues for wildlife. The sense of pleasure was short-lived, however; the wolverine was not included in the  review. Species deemed candidates prior to November 2010 are included, and the wolverine decision didn’t come through until December 2010, so gulos missed the cut by about ten days.

The walrus – another species at risk from climate change – also missed out, leading one member of the lawsuit, the Center for Biological Diversity, to withdraw from the agreement, claiming that the exclusion of wolverines and walruses represented an attempt by the federal government to avoid dealing with climate-sensitive species. Twelve days after the agreement was reached, a judge put it on hold, agreeing that the plan was too vague, and giving the US Fish and Wildlife service until June 20th to reach a new agreement with environmental organizations. (As an aside, the article linked above incorrectly states that the wolverine would have been included in the review – the press seems confused about the details surrounding this story.)

This is a complex topic, but, reduced to the essentials, the agreement would have suspended all legal actions related to candidate species until after the review concluded in 2016. This would be a boon to the USFWS, for whom the onslaught of litigation is perpetual; they would probably like more time and funds to concentrate on implementing conservation plans. And it probably would have been a boon to the environmental community, because litigation, while effective in some instances, makes a lot of enemies. And it isn’t a particularly creative or dynamic conservation strategy, so it would have been good to have some breathing space and spare funds to develop some new approaches. For the wolverine, walrus, and other species that didn’t make the cut, however, the agreement would probably have pushed any action back by five years, which is frustrating.

In the best-case scenario, USFWS and the environmental groups will expand the review to include all species currently on the candidate list, and proceed from there. This would be a great solution for everyone, including the wolverine. In the worst-case scenario, the acrimony  and aggravation will cause both sides to abandon the entire process, leaving 251 species stuck in limbo when they might otherwise have been listed, and leaving the wolverine exactly where it would have been anyway. Let’s hope that June 20th brings good news for everyone.

High Country News published an article related to this topic. I haven’t had time to read it, and it requires a subscription, but it seems like it might be worth the read. HCN also gives a nod to the recent discovery of gulos in the Wallowas – thanks to them, as always, for good wolverine and endangered species coverage.

 

The Wolverine Week in Review

A small avalanche of articles on wolverines has appeared over the past two weeks. From an enthusiastic write-up of Doug Chadwick’s Canadian tour promoting The Wolverine Way, to two pleas (here, a piece in New West, and here, in National Parks Traveler) for wider protection of the species in the US, to a synopsis in High Country News of new climate change research that suggests that wolverines are facing harder times ahead, to a recap of the adventures of the lone Sierra male, wolverines are becoming more newsworthy day-by-day. Average daily visits to this blog are about twice what they were six months ago, and attendance at wolverine talks in Colorado, Idaho, and Wyoming has been standing-room-only for the past ten months. All of this indicates an increased interest, which is gratifying to those of us who have long hoped that the wolverine would gain a more prominent place in our collective awareness.

Sometimes, wider attention can be two-edged, however. Over the past few years, as we’ve prepared to induct the wolverine into the ranks of conservation darlings, I’ve had a few moments of panic over the way in which good intentions could go awry. There’s a thin line between reasoned advocacy and blind enthusiasm, and it’s easy for the former to tip over into the latter. The wolverine needs a constituency, but it needs a constituency that advocates for smart things, in a smart way.

Immediately following the listing decision in December,  the environmentalist reaction to the “warranted but precluded” designation was primarily one of disappointment and reproach. I was particularly taken aback by an editorial that lambasted the decision as “political” and called for immediate listing. I’ve struggled to articulate reasons for my reaction to this piece, because I too would have preferred to see the wolverine listed and offered endangered species protections, even while realizing that the ‘warranted but precluded’ status represents a huge step forward. But, after some reflection, after a lesser resurgence of frustration while reading some of last week’s articles, and partially in reaction to some recent discussions about Montana’s trapping season (about which more to come in later posts), I think it comes down to this:

The environmental movement gained its foothold in the midst of the crises of the 1960′s and 1970′s, and its narrative – its essential script – is always of crisis. Environmental advocates are caught in a perpetual reactive cycle that is fundamentally defensive, combative, and angry. And in order to be defensive and combative, one requires, of course, someone against whom to direct one’s anger – an enemy.

In reacting to the listing decision in December, some people chose to cast the federal government in the role of enemy. There have been murmurs within the environmental advocacy community and the growing wolverine fan base, seeking to assign that role to other groups – to snowmobilers, to trappers, to ranchers. It is to the credit of environmental advocates that none of these narratives of threat have blown up and taken off, but the risk is always there. And it is a risk, for two reasons. First, using any of these potent narratives against a specific identity-based group has the potential to evoke an anti-wolverine reaction from politically powerful people. Take a ten-second glance at the state of wolf conservation, and you will understand why this would be a disaster. Second,  re-enacting the ritual battles of cultural identity that characterize environmental disputes in the West distracts us  from the real issues surrounding wolverine conservation, which are climate change and habitat fragmentation.

This, then, is why calls for listing as a conservation solution for wolverines make my stomach flip. Listing has worked fantastically for a number of species, but it’s as if people have come to believe that putting an animal on the list is the equivalent of having conserved it. That’s not the case. The wolverine could be listed, and it would make little difference to its long-term prospects, because we lack the political and social will to tackle those big, looming issues, and the ESA, which doesn’t allow us to regulate for climate change, gives us no grounds to do so.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t list the wolverine, but that we need to stay focused on substantive as well as symbolic actions. We’ve become so accustomed to fighting for listing as the apotheosis of endangered species conservation that, in some ways, we’re floundering in confusion, and clinging to the comfort of those old successes, as we try to deal with the fact that wolverines – and polar bears, and other species threatened by climate change – call for something above and beyond the predictable strategies that have worked well in the past. We don’t yet know what those solutions will look like, but we know that they will have to be bigger and just as systemic as the problems that necessitate them.

And this brings me back to narratives of combat, crisis, and enemies. If we’re going to tackle these bigger issues, we need alliances, not battle lines. We need to use reasonable federal decisions as a jumping-off point instead of entrenching and employing limited resources to fight the government. We need better data on critical questions about reproduction,  dispersal, and genetic exchange so that we know how to take effective action – which means that we need to fund research and monitoring. We need to guarantee every single wolverine a fighting chance to successfully disperse and reproduce, with as few potential sources of direct mortality as possible. We need instantaneous action on climate change, although – as Synte Peacock’s recent paper on climate modeling in wolverine habitat in the Rockies points out – it may be too late for that already. We need a push for a new conservation narrative, more complex, more sophisticated, and ultimately more successful, that can build alliances for action on those larger issues.

So keep the interest in wolverines high, and keep calling for listing, but let’s make sure that we’re also talking about what we’re going to do beyond that to ensure that the wolverine stays on the ground in the Rockies. There is a crisis, but it’s not a simple crisis with a single solution – it’s worldwide and culturally embedded, and its implications extend far beyond wolverines.

That was something of a rant, and I apologize for any sense of negativity. I deeply appreciate the increasing interest in wolverines and the sincerity behind people’s desire to see it protected. But I hope we can direct energy and resources in the most effective fashion, without getting distracted by protracted legal or media battles unless they are necessary.

To bring things down a notch, I’ll leave off with a series of camera-trap photos from Banff National Park in Canada, which includes some photos of a wolverine gnawing on a moose carcass, and a great action shot of a wolverine in mid-air, chasing a raven. Enjoy.

Gulo gulo: Precluded

Monday’s USFWS decision on the wolverine was two-fold:  wolverines do face threats, primarily from climate change, but they are also currently precluded from protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA.) The “precluded” portion of the decision hinged on the word “imminent,” which to many implies “looming,” but which, under the ESA, means “on-going.” In other words, wolverines were deemed, at this moment, to be free of the effects of climate change, and therefore not in immediate need of protection.

Wolverines are currently expanding their range throughout the Rockies after being extirpated by predator control programs – probably most significantly poison baits – during the first half of the 20^th century. This paradox is partially responsible for the ‘precluded’ designation, because the wolverine population in the Rockies is apparently growing. But the decision acknowledges that even though wolverines are recolonizing long-vacant habitat, they are coming home to a less secure and already-shrunken range that is likely to continue to diminish in the future. The triumphant and epic journeys of wolverines like M56, who traveled from Wyoming to Colorado, and the Sierra male, who apparently trekked from Idaho to California, mask the hard reality of what will happen in coming decades, even if reproductive populations return to the wolverine’s entire historic range.

As a warranted but precluded species, the wolverine now becomes a candidate for listing, with the current decision revisited each year until the species is either listed, or deemed not warranted.

The ESA uses a ranking system of one to twelve to assign threat level; the wolverine received a six. The threat is recognized as substantial, but other species facing more immediate difficulties will be prioritized. The wolverine will likely remain a candidate for some time. As a candidate species, the wolverine will receive a few benefits – funding sources for candidate species research and conservation exist, and being on the shortlist for the ESA will encourage public lands managers to pay more attention to the needs of the species. But the status offers no solid protection.

Since the decision came out, I’ve swung through an array of emotions, from being relieved and pleased that the wolverine is finally receiving some recognition and at least a small measure of legal protection, to annoyance with the USFWS for their definition of “imminent,” to deep – heart-deep – frustration with Americans who refuse to acknowledge that climate change is a threat, and who thereby, in their ignorance, destroy the world. Through it all, I keep coming back to the conviction that the USFWS actually made the right and most logical decision. Seeing the wolverine listed as endangered would have been great, but unfortunately it would also have been a primarily symbolic victory.

When it became clear that the polar bear would be listed under the ESA, the Bush Administration issued a rule stating that the ESA couldn’t be used to enforce emissions regulations or any other action to mitigate climate change. Despite early signs that the Obama Administration might overturn this rule, they haven’t. For any species threatened by climate change, listing essentially became a bittersweet status symbol, a statement that we might be allowed to regulate the smaller stuff, but we have no mandate to tackle the bigger issue.  It undermined an incredibly powerful piece of legislation that has done great things for our country’s wildlife.  It essentially said, to all the species threatened by climate change, “Rome’s burning? Yeah, we can see the smoke. Here, have a fiddle.”

So while I would love to see the wolverine listed, the basic question is this: given the fact that the ESA has no power to address the causes of climate change, and given the vast number of species facing threats for many reasons, and given the USFWS’ limited resources, does it make more sense to list and actively protect species for which the ESA is able to immediately address threats? I love wolverines and my work with them has constituted the most inspiring four years of my life, but I’m not selfish enough to say that they should be (symbolically) listed at the cost of the extinction of another species. There’s an argument to be made that listing would allow us to address secondary threats more decisively,  but for most of those threats, the science isn’t adequate to prove that they’re having a population-level effect – yet. And without the science, we need to be careful about how we deal with claims for the need for regulation. Therefore, in the real interests of biodiversity, the USFWS probably made the right decision.

Make no mistake: we should concentrate attention and effort on reversing those rules that don’t permit us to protect wildlife as we should. And the second the climate change rule is reversed, the wolverine should be on the list – let us hope that happens before we get to a situation so dire that we have to begin addressing the secondary threats as a last-ditch option. But we should also be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking that the act of listing is equivalent to having protected the species, or that listing is the only solution. Hopefully the ESA will soon regain its rightful place as a protector of all of America’s threatened wildlife.  Right now, unfortunately, it looks as if we’re going to have to start looking and thinking beyond the ESA to find ways to address climate change – and to protect the wolverine.

As an initial foray into alternatives, the Colorado Division of Wildlife went public with the news that they are considering options for reintroducing wolverines there. So much wolverine news, so little time. More on this next week.

Gulo gulo: Warranted

In a 134-page decision that meticulously reviews available science and incorporates direct input from wolverine researchers, the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced on Monday that the wolverine is warranted but precluded for protection under the Endangered Species Act. The designation recognizes that wolverines face substantial threats, but deems other species of higher priority, placing the wolverine in limbo until the agency decides the species should be listed, or that it is not warranted.

Monday’s announcement represents an important step forward for those of us who work on wolverine research and conservation. The science encapsulates an extraordinary effort on the part of North American wolverine biologists, who were struggling to answer even the most basic questions when the wolverine was first proposed for listing in 1993. The fact that this decision was issued at all represents the persistence of the advocacy community in the face of very legitimate concerns about the basis of the 2008 decision. And the fact that climate change is cited as the primary threat represents, at the least, good science and a certain integrity on the part of decision makers willing to acknowledge that climate change is an issue – even if the ESA is powerless to force changes in regulations of carbon emissions.

The document is worth reading, especially for anyone interested in a thorough review of current wolverine science. For those who don’t have the time, here’s how the decision was reasoned, starting with the “warranted” designation.

Jeff Copeland’s 2010 paper linking wolverines to persistent spring snow and cool summer temperatures, and an unpublished climate model paper by Kevin McKelvey of the Rocky Mountain Research Station, underpinned the recognition of climate change as a substantial threat. The McKelvey paper modeled local-scale climate change in Rocky Mountain wolverine habitat over the next century, predicting a 23% loss of habitat by 2035, and a 63% loss by 2099. Acknowledging the natural rarity of wolverines, and their distribution at the southern edge of their range in an archipelago of high elevation habitat islands, the decision cited increasing difficulty in maintaining genetic connectivity among populations, and a decrease in breeding habitat, as the outcomes of warming. The loss of genetic diversity and the decrease in available habitat will lead directly to a decrease in wolverine numbers. Hence wolverines are threatened by loss of population, driven by climate change.

Trapping, disturbance due to recreation or industry, and development along dispersal routes constituted secondary threats. The decision states, probably accurately, that some disturbance and some mortality from a managed trapping season are not substantial threats to a healthy wolverine population. But synergy is a tricky thing, and in a world where population nodes are growing more separated and habitat is decreasing, every individual counts. Activities that wouldn’t normally pose a problem will potentially become overwhelming if climate change effects are fully felt.

Some more sobering numbers cited in the decision: the total population of wolverines in the Rockies is no more than 300, scattered in a meta-population across three states. The official effective population throughout the contiguous US – in other words, the number of wolverines contributing genes to the population – is 35. Of 13 haplotypes identified in wolverines throughout North America, only 3 are present in Rocky Mountain wolverines. Scientists estimate that an individual population of wolverines would need 400 breeding pairs to maintain genetic viability in isolation over the long term. Take note; that means that each node in the contiguous US would require 400 breeding pairs in the absence of reliable exchange among nodes. The Tetons, the population node next door to my office, host approximately five adult wolverines, and the range is saturated, all territories occupied. Five. That’s it.

Six states – Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Washington, Colorado, and California – are included in current wolverine territory, as defined by this decision. California and Colorado’s inclusion is notable, despite having only a single confirmed male each. These regions were historically occupied by wolverines, and the decision acknowledges that the species was likely extirpated from its entire range in the Lower 48 during the first half of the 20^th century, by predator control programs. In this scenario – we don’t have any proof, but it’s likely true – wolverines have only returned to the northern Rockies over the past few decades. The decision acknowledges that recolonization is still occurring and that wolverines may not have yet made it back to the further reaches of their range.

As for the 2008 decision’s assertion that US wolverines are not a distinct population segment (DPS) and are indistinguishable from Canada’s wolverines, the current decision cites both genetic evidence and management differences to draw a clear line between the two.

Of the five reasons that a species may be listed under the ESA, the decision found the wolverine warranted for four: loss of habitat (the primary threat, due to climate change), overutilization (trapping, a secondary threat exacerbated by climate change), inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms (development, a secondary threat likewise exacerbated by climate change) and other natural or manmade factors affecting its continued existence (loss of genetic diversity, again a secondary threat driven by climate change.)

This is how we arrived, finally, at a recognition of the threats facing wolverines. How wolverines ended up precluded, and what that means, is a topic for tomorrow.

In the meantime, although I don’t usually go in for gimmicks, I’m making it snow on my blog. I thought it was appropriate, in both a straightforward – wolverines like snow!- and an awful way – we all think it’s so cute when our computers snow, but we can’t muster the will to make sure it keeps doing so in reality.