ANCHORAGE — An environmental group gave formal notice Thursday that it will sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list Pacific walrus as a threatened or endangered species.
Rebecca Noblin of the Center for Biological Diversity in Anchorage said the group will sue to move walrus off the government agency’s “warranted but precluded” list. The Fish and Wildlife Service announced in February that walrus need additional protection from the threat of climate warming but could not be added to the threatened or endangered list because other species were a higher priority.
Noblin said the agency has not demonstrated that a walrus listing is precluded by other listing proposals or that progress is being made in adding qualified species to the list. The Obama administration, she said, has acknowledged that climate change threatens the survival of the Pacific walrus but has chosen not to step in to stop their extinction.
“It’s like the captain of the Titanic saying he knows the ship is about to hit an iceberg, but he’s too busy filling out the paperwork to turn the wheel,” she said.
A Fish and Wildlife spokesman, Bruce Woods, in February said the agency will review its decision next year but that walrus were relatively low on the list of species on the “warranted but precluded” list. He said Thursday that he cannot comment on pending litigation.
The Center for Biological Diversity in 2008 petitioned to list walrus as threatened or endangered, citing threats to walrus’ sea ice habitat.
Scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center have tracked a steady decline in sea ice in recent decades. Climate models have projected that summer sea ice could disappear by 2030.
Alaska’s walrus population spends virtually the entire winter in the Bering Sea on the edge of sea ice that forms every year. In spring, as temperatures warm, ice melts and the edge of the sea ice moves north.
Older males spend the summer in the Bering Sea, foraging from islands or remote coastal shores. Females and pups, however, ride the ice edge north as it recedes through the Bering Strait and into the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. Females dive to the shallow continental shelf in search of clams as pups rest above them, safe from predators.
In recent years, summer sea ice has receded well beyond the continental shelf over water too deep for walrus to dive for clams. Walrus in three of the last four years congregated by the thousands on Alaska’s northwest shore. Larger numbers took refuge on the Russian side of the Chukchi Sea.
The Fish and Wildlife Service was under a court-ordered deadline to decide by Jan. 31 whether to recommend walrus for listing. Listing was endorsed by the federal Marine Mammal Commission, which oversees marine mammal conservation policies carried out by federal regulatory agencies.
Comments (30)
Add commentBig-Eco's war on prosperity
Big-Eco's war on prosperity continues.
Well, of course they'll sue.
Well, of course they'll sue. What's new?
Its global
I guess these folks figure stifling Alaska's/US's economy will make the earth cold again. Problem is, global warming is global. Pollution is coming from all over the globe so shutting down some industry in Alaska won't do anything but increase our deficit and trade imbalance.
"I Am the Walrus"
Has anyone noticed that all these so called endangered spices just happen to live in areas where oil is located?
Well, milspec, you know "the
Well, milspec, you know "the ends justify the means".
The ends justify the means:
"At the beginning of an action I might not be able to determine whether that action is morally right or wrong, but when the morally right goal is successfully achieved, then the steps which led to it must be morally right too."
Karl Rove...
...has always been a good student of Machiavelli.
We're going to see a lot of
We're going to see a lot of changes in the Arctic ecosystem in the near future, mostly in species going extinct. Very sad.
Persnickety
Such as?
Ursus maritimus
I came from brilliance
And return to brilliance
What is this?
Ursus maritimus
250,000 b.c.e - 2100 c.e
Extinction
@Milspec.: as I said, mostly in species going extinct. With less and less Arctic ice every year, polar bears are finding themselves with much less area in which to den, and they're having trouble reaching seals, which is their main food source. They've been attacking walruses with increasing frequency, which is dangerous, because walruses are big and have pointy tusks. And more troubling is that there have been increased incidences of cannibalism--particularly male on female cannibalism, which is very much out of the norm since polar bears are rare enough that when a male encounters a female, his first instinct should be to mate with her. The fact that he eats her says he's starving.
The Arctic Fox's range is also disappearing at an alarming rate, and combined with the Red Fox infringing on its territory in some places, may be in trouble sometime in the near future.
The beluga whale, which is more prone to interactions with humans (usually bad) due to less ice cover.
And of course the walruses, as described in the article.
There are most likely more, as well, as the Arctic is undergoing some pretty rapid changes, and all the flora and fauna currently living there won't necessarily be able to adapt fast enough to cope.
wrong tree?
Perhaps these people are barking up the wrong tree? I'm sure while writing up their lawsuits they drank coffee with beans that were grown in clearcut rainforest, paper that came from logging, showered with water heated by coal fired steam plants, drove their cars to the lawyer's office...I could go on but I'm going to go sing in the acid rain.
Right. So because they can't
Right. So because they can't live 100% green that completely invalidates everything they're trying to do.
Guess what: if they didn't have paper, showers, or other modern amenities, they wouldn't be able to defend the environment at all. And also, there's a difference between reckless exploitation and responsible exploitation. No conservation biologist will agree that all logging is bad, and few environmentalists will, either.
Being part of a system
in no way abrogates your ability, right, or obligation to try and change that system.
Polar bears eating walruses,
Polar bears eating walruses, canibilisiam. With what you explained here, I believe this environmental group needs to have a talk with the polar bears. They sound like there a nuisance.
First of all polar bears are not rare. Second, male encounters with females especially with cubs are very common and the first thing the male will do is attack and kill the cubs. If he can that also applies for the female. You must be watching too many Disney shows. BTW Bambi can talk. I didn’t know that till some one told me so.
@Milspec.: polar bears are
@Milspec.: polar bears are apex predators, and are thus very rare. There's about one for every 500 square miles, on average.
Also: they're = they are. There = location.
It sounds to me
...like Milspec is advancing the argument that because polar bears are predators and not very nice animals (although he offers no evidence, data or citations to support his claims regarding their behavior), driving them to extinction is morally acceptable. It seems to me that HE is the one who has been watching too many Disney films, and is expecting everything to be cute and cuddly and if it is not, wants to do away with it.
And even anecdotally, encounters between males and nursing females cannot be "common" (although the term is not defined in the post above, nor is "rare") if such encounters result in cub mortality, by sheer virtue of population dynamics and sustainability.
Had you noticed?
That the climate has been changing since the dawn of time, and most likely it will continue to do so? Many species on this planet have come and gone, including apex predators, no nannies took care of them either. I tend to believe that eventually man, the apex of the apex predators, will be a thing of the past as well.
Have you noticed?
A lot of people seem to use the fact of planetary change as an excuse to do whatever we want without regard to anything, because everything is always changing anyway.
A parallel would be for me to go into someone's house, destroy whatever I want, take whatever I want, injure or kill whomever in the process, and then claim that my actions were morally correct because everyone dies, the vast majority of people who have ever lived are dead, houses and furniture and clothes decay and turn to dust, and things like earthquakes and tsunamis happen all the time that have similar results.
An interesting article...
..on how and why human beings can easily reject science and facts depending on their paradigm and world-view. The piece takes both the left and right sides of the political spectrum.
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney?page=1
UhHHH Yea.
That was exactly my point, idiot.
It really doesn't matter
What we do or don't do to try and change the climate. We can never predict what the future will hold, or the effect it will have on the planet, except things will change.
As for killing people
I find it very telling that you went there, fromdust.
@momzilla64: it DOES matter
@momzilla64: it DOES matter what we do or not do to change the climate, considering it's changing because of us in the first place. There is more carbon in the atmosphere than there has been for millions of years, and it's mostly because we've been tapping carbon reservoirs for the last 150-ish years. The planet will no doubt survive, and we probably will, too. The question is whether we want to survive in a nice way that involves progress, prosperity, and civilization, or the other way that involves severe and rapid population decline, poverty and squalor, and the collapse of the modern world.
Even if you don't buy the idea that we have a moral responsibility to fix what we've broken and treat the earth with respect, we DO have a vested interest in protecting the environment, given that we would not survive without it, and given all it does for us that we take for granted.
Prove it.
Prove it Persnickity. Al Gore and his flagrant lying about global warming ruined my trust. You cannot prove a connection between humans and global warming or the extiction of Arctic animals. You cannot even prove they will become extinct, they may surprise everyone and adapt.
As for protecting the enviroment, I do agree. Fisheries, fuel, food and many other aspects of a comfortable life do need to be taken care of.
The first and best step would be birth control for the human race. Since it can be proven that resources are limited and as the population increases there is less to go around for all.
@momzilla64: Al Gore didn't
@momzilla64: Al Gore didn't lie about global warming, he just used some rhetorical tricks that don't have a place in a scientific discussion (but because you all like to listen to what Republican politicians say, it's probably necessary to use these tricks). The connection between CO2 emissions and climate change is well documented, and the extinction of arctic animals is based on the rate of their habitat's destruction. No, we can't prove 100% any of this, because you can't prove ANYTHING completely using science. Basically, your argument boils down to denialism. You don't WANT to be convinced (because then you'll have to think about the choices you make and your role in causing/perpetuating the problem), so nothing will convince you.
http://www.scidev.net/en/climate-change-and-energy/policy-briefs/the-evi...
However, your argument that, "maybe they will adapt" is SO irresponsible! And highly unlikely. If a family member has cancer, do you refuse to take them to the hospital because "maybe they'll get better"?
Lower order species have a much better chance of adapting because they have short generation spans. Polar bears, by contrast, live for 15 years or so. Only a few generations will have passed by the time their habitat disappears--not nearly enough time to adapt. Make no mistake, they will go extinct, along with several other species. Just a few more to add to the list. I'd like to think we'll change our ways before anything terrible happens, but I doubt it.
Ah but they can learn...
I'm not in denial, but if it makes you feel superior to think so, go ahead. I do not deny the climate is changing. You choose to blame the human race. Good for you! One medium sized volcanic eruption places more CO2 in the atmosphere that all the industrial revolution, ditto the wild fires in 2004 that burned 5% of the land in Alaska. Mother Nature is a force to be reckoned with, far greater than we the fleas that inhabit her skin. And the climate will change in spite of all we do to try and stop it. So go ahead and believe that you are powerful enough to change the climate, if I am in denial, you are a megalomaniac.
Fallacious reasoning & facts
@momzilla64: First off, your reasoning is fallacious. If other sources contribute more CO2 to the atmosphere than we do, that doesn't mean our emissions have no effect, particularly because OUR emissions come from carbon stores that were previously sequestered away from the global ecosystem. A small change can add up over time, especially when a system is in equilibrium. And in the case of forest fires, while much carbon is released into the atmosphere, the period directly after a forest fire is marked by accelerated growth as the understory of the forest grows back.
Secondly, your statements are incorrect. The average yearly output of volcanic CO2 is several orders of magnitude lower than ours. Ditto forest fires. About 4% of CO2 yearly CO2 emissions come from us. That doesn't seem like a lot, but it adds up, year after year, and throws things off kilter just a little more each year. And again, this isn't carbon that was already being cycled through the ecosystem—this is carbon that hasn't been part of it for millions of years.
http://geology.com/nasa/human-carbon-dioxide/
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11638-climate-myths-human-co2-emis...
http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions...
Anyway, if you're not in denial, then hopefully you'll go out and educate yourself so you don't fall for false "facts" in the future. It's a cop out to say it's "megalomaniacal" to believe we can have profound effects on the world. We can, and we have. That mercury in tuna and other seafood we're so worried about? That came from us. Background radiation on the planet increasing by about 10% over natural levels? Us again. How about oceanic dead zones caused by agricultural runoff into streams and rivers? Us! And of course the massive deforestation that has taken place through the world, the multitude of introduced species that have caused biomes to collapse and species to go extinct, and so on.
It is incredibly arrogant to think we can BEAT mother nature. It is not arrogant to think we can adversely affect the planet in ways that cause irreparable damage to ecosystems and our own way of life.
I have to wonder PP
What do you do for a living that you have so much time to post and argue with everyone? I get my facts from things I have read over the years, magazines, journals, National Geographic, Books, the internet and yes even TV. I do like Nat Geo, history channel and Discovery. I apologize for not surfing the net to cut and paste facts for you. Here is one example of volcanic eruption for you. Kiluea in Hawaii has been erupting constantly (more or less) for the last 200 years. It also creates a "vog" Co2 and other gases that pollute the atmosphere, constantly. THIS IS JUST ONE EXAMPLE! from wikipedia:
The volcano erupts frequently, with written records recording historical eruptions as early as 1820. In an earlier episode around 1790, an eruption killed a party of warriors and their families.[9] These soldiers were part of the army controlled by Keōua Kuahuʻula, the last chief on the island to resist Kamehameha I. In 1825, Admiral Lord Byron, cousin of the famous poet, visited the volcano.[10] His campsite, still known as "Byron's Ledge" is located at coordinates 19°24′54″N 155°15′23″W / 19.415°N 155.25639°W / 19.415; -155.25639.
I was at the Volcanic observatory where one of the plaques said that more CO2 was produced by volcanos that humans. Have you ever heard of Krakatoa or how about Mt St Helens?
We all don't google life on the internet.
Anyway, I have little time or inclination to argue with you any more. Travel some, broaden your little world. Try to be more tolerant of others, your life will be the better for it.
You may have the last word.
I fail to see what your point
I fail to see what your point about Kiluea and the other volcanoes is. Yes, volcanoes do erupt. That's what they're known for. You may have heard that volcanos release more CO2 into the atmosphere than we do, but that's incorrect. A single eruption might release more than what we do in a year, but averages are what matter, not single instances.
Also, you could travel to every place in the world and it wouldn't make you understand the process of climate change. I am a tolerant person when it comes to things people don't control, but I am not tolerant of willful ignorance. You should not have an opinion if you don't understand what you're talking about. Period.