Hey Tweets! Some good news for a change! We're holding our own vs. Pacific
Lumber!

Peggi
>
>From: Seabird Bycatch Project
>
>
>US Supreme Court Refuses to Hear ESA Challenge
>
>On February 21, 1997, the Supreme Court declined to review a Ninth Circuit
>Court decision in the case of Pacific Lumber v. Marbled Murrelet. This
>decision upheld the US Fish and Wildlife Service's determination that
>destruction of the Marbled Murrelet's habitat would sufficiently "harm" and
>"harass" the threatened seabird enough to constitute a "take" under the
>Endangered Species Act.
>
>
>Editor's Background Note: Under the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) private
>individuals are forbidden to "take" any species listed as threatened or
>endangered. "Take," however, is defined under the US ESA law (16 USC
>1532(18)) as meaning to "harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, would, kill,
>trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct."
>
>The timber industry in the Pacific Northwest has a long history of destroying
>the old-growth habitat of such species as the spotted owl and the marbled
>murrelet, and has long taken the position that the ESA only requires them to
>refrain from actually and directly killing a listed bird. Under this
>interpretation they would then be free to cut down all the birds' nesting and
>feeding sites so long as they were careful not to actually kill any birds
>themselves in the process. This in fact is just what happens.
>
>The US Supreme Court, however, took the sensible position a few years ago in
>a famous case referred to as the "Sweethome Decision" that destruction of
>habitat itself could also consititute a "take" under the ESA law. What
>probably convinced them were legal briefs from conservation biologists
>pointing out that depriving a species of its necessary survival habitat was
>tantamount to its destruction.
>
>The Pacific Lumber company owns the world's last major stand of old growth
>redwoods still left in private ownership. These huge trees are from between
>500 to 1000 years old, and are a major refuge area for the marbeled murrelet,
>a seabird which nests ONLY in trees of this type but feeds offshore. The
>company wants to cut these trees very badly, but so far has been blocked
>under the ESA by bird conservationists and environmental groups. Their suit
>in this case was an effort to overturn the Sweethome Decision, but has
>failed.
>
>This ruling allows federal agencies to continue to protect the last remaining
>refuge areas for marbled murrlet on private lands in the US, which in turn
>helps keep these populations up above the point where what would otherwise be
>relatively minor at-sea marine bycatch mortalities of this bird becomes a
>population-level threat.
>
>The commercial fishing industry on the US west coast has strenuously opposed
>any further destruction of onshore marbled murrelet habitat by the timber
>industry, pointing out the futility of imposing extensive protections for
>murrelets at sea while still allowing their nesting habitat to disappear
>entirely.
>
>In retaliation for ESA restrictions, the timber industry lobby recently had
>the US Congress adopt a special 18 month exemption for all its logging
>activities so that for this time window neither the ESA nor any other
>environmental law any longer applied to its logging activities at all (the
>so-called "timber salvage rider"). This 18 month exemption has just expired.
> Some critical murrelet habitat was lost as a result, putting additional
>pressure on the population as well as on the fishing industry to absolutely
>minimize any potential mortality they may cause in order to preserve the
>remnant populations. Mechanisms to fairly equalize the protection burden
>among all those sectors potentially responsible for seabird mortality are
>mostly nonexistant.
>
>QUESTION: This is a textbook case of a national government promoting (or
>even subsidizing) land uses which actively destroy critical seabird nesting
>habitat on land while simultaneously going to extraordinary lengths to
>protect them at sea. Do you know of any other such instances? Are nesting
>sites for albatross, for instance, adequately protected by their governments?
> While fishing bycatch impacts obviously must be minimized, it would seem
>that these kinds of policy "disconnects" create instances where even heroic
>measures by fishermen to prevent seabird bycatch at sea may be futile because
>essential bird habitat elsewhere is being systematically or negligently
>destroyed. Do you know of other examples?
>
>It would also seem that there is a real incentive for the fishing industry to
>team up with bird conservationists to protect onshore seabird nesting habitat
>for those species potentially affected by commercial fish harvests. Are
>there examples of this being done in your area? This would be a fruitful
>line of discussion for many of the Network's participants.
>
> -- Seabird Bycatch Project Staff
> _______________________________________________________________
>
>John Cooper
>
>Marine Advisor
>Independent World Commission on the Oceans
>Ministry of Water Affairs and Forestry
>Pvt Bag X9052
>Cape Town 8000
>South Africa
>
>zop at dwaf-par.wcape.gov.za
>
>Tel: +27-21-457-246 extn 251
>Fax: +27-21-453-362
>Home phone: +27-21-685-1357 (answering machine)
>
>"I have never met a dog that would not make a better cat"
>_______________________________________________________________
>
>.-
>
>
Ben & Peggi Rodgers
Aptos, CA (near Santa Cruz)
USA
woodduck at cruzio.com


"A bird does not sing because it has an answer,
It sings because it has a song"