Buck In Brief

Marbled Murrelet

In Brief: A small, elusive sea bird that nests in ancient trees far inland is at the center of a struggle between science and politics.

09/15/04

When addressing issues of the environment, the Bush administration claims to be a proponent of using the "best available science" in its decision-making. This commitment to science -- even science produced by handpicked consultants -- was not evident in the case of the marbled murrelets of the Pacific Northwest. In a move that has all the hallmarks of political payback and, if unchallenged, will have dire consequences for these threatened seabirds and the old-growth forests that support them, the Bush administration determined that murrelets living in the Pacific Northwest may not be entitled to the protection of the Endangered Species Act because there are stable populations of murrelets in British Columbia and Alaska. While this decision is disappointing, it is just the latest round in the fight to save this small seabird from extinction.

It is common sense that a threatened species needs a home in order to survive. To ensure listed species have adequate habitat, the Endangered Species Act requires that federal agencies define and protect critical habitat "essential to the conservation of the species." While the law mandates protecting habitat, this designation can be controversial, especially in the case of the marbled murrelets, where 90 percent of the remaining old-growth trees suitable for nesting-thus critical to the survival of the species-are found on public land coveted by the timber industry.

In 2002, in an attempt to open more public land to logging, the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry trade group, brought a lawsuit to force the Fish and Wildlife Service to review the status of marble murrelets with an eye towards removing the bird from the threatened species list. Not surprisingly, the Bush administration refused to defend against the lawsuit, and soon the timber industry and the Fish and Wildlife Service were involved in closed-door negotiations. The result was unprecedented: rather than use its own staff scientists, the Fish and Wildlife Service hired an outside consulting firm to conduct the status review of the murrelet. However, undoubtedly to the surprise of industry insiders and their friends in Washington, the report found that marbled murrelets in Washington, Oregon, and California deserve listing as threatened because the Pacific Northwest population is in decline and is distinct from the birds in British Columbia and Alaska.

Dissatisfied with the findings, Craig Manson, Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, ordered the Fish and Wildlife biologists to rewrite the report and change its conclusion that murrelets in the Pacific Northwest are a distinct population. Outrageous? Yes. Suprising? Unfortunately, no. After the sanitized Fish and Wildlife report was released the independent scientists who had reviewed the bird's status recognized their work was being ignored and warned in no uncertain terms, "...loss of any of the three populations could reduce the species' genetic resources and compromise its long-term viability."

Assistant Secretary Manson, a Bush administration appointee, is no friend of the Endangered Species Act and has been a vocal critic of the critical habitat provision. In public speeches and interviews he has stated that critical habitat designations are unnecessary for the perpetuation of many threatened plant and animal species. Manson questions the value of trying to save listed species and expounds a pseudo-Darwinist view in which endangered species are threatened because they are unable to adapt to changing circumstances -- in the case of the marbled murrelet, unable to adapt to having their nesting sites clear-cut. These are truly frightening words from the head of the agency responsible for enforcing the Endangered Species Act.

However, hostility to the Endangered Species Act is not limited to the executive branch. Anti-environmental forces have been busy in Congress working on legislation to weaken the Endangered Species Act. The House Resources Committee, chaired by Richard Pombo (R-CA), has passed two bills that attempt to undermine fundamental elements of the statute: the use of best available science and the protection of habitat necessary to their survival. H.R. 1662, the Endangered Species Data Quality Act of 2004, seeks to undercut the use of the best available science by legislating what kind of science agencies can use, rather than leaving those issues to scientists. It also attempts to delay protective decisions by putting in place a perverse system of peer review that provides for significant political influence. Finally, the bill gives special rights to industry during the formulation of biological opinions, offering opportunities for undue influence in these decisions or outright prevention of them through future Data Quality Act challenges.

The other bill passed out of Chairman Pombo's committee is H.R. 2933, the Critical Habitat Reform Act of 2003. This bill would remove the legal requirement that the Fish and Wildlife Service identify, and federal agencies protect, the habitat critical to a species' recovery.

If these bills are passed they will profoundly weaken the Endangered Species Act and legalize the egregious actions that now threaten the survival of the marbled murrelet. It is critical that environmentally minded citizens speak out against these attempts to undercut the Endangered Species Act, one of our most effective and powerful environmental laws.

Vawter "Buck" Parker, Executive Director
buckparker@earthjustice.org