Posts by Chris Clarke
February 4, 2010
Obama Administration Denies American Pika Endangered Species Act Protection
By Chris Clarke | Posted on February 4, 2010
Today the Obama administration denied Endangered Species Act protection to the American pika, a small mountain-dwelling mammal that is on the frontlines of global-warming-driven endangerment. The decision, issued by Interior Secretary Salazar, comes in response to a scientific petition submitted in 2007 by the Center for Biological Diversity, represented by Earthjustice.
November 10, 2009
Stop the NRA’s assault on condors
By Chris Clarke | Posted on November 10, 2009
Photo by Just Chaos
The National Rifle Association is gunning for America’s largest and most endangered bird—the condor.
Calling us “extremists” for trying to stop the poisoning of condors by lead bullets — inside a federal national monument, no less — the NRA is pitting its multimillion-dollar legal team against our lawyers in a showdown that will determine whether condors survive or disappear forever.
October 9, 2009
“Worst Salmon-Killing Dam on Rogue River” Completely Removed
By Chris Clarke | Posted on October 9, 2009
Rogue River returns to original streambed for first time in 88 years
Oakland, CA — The last pieces of the Savage Rapids Dam, widely regarded as the worst fish-killer on Oregon’s Rogue River, are being removed today. The river will be restored to its natural bed for the first time in 88 years, just in time for the Fall run of coho salmon.
The demolition is the direct result of a lawsuit Earthjustice attorneys Mike Sherwood and Claudia Polsky participated in on behalf of WaterWatch of Oregon. WaterWatch waged a two-decade campaign to remove the dam. Removal of the dam opens access to 500 miles of spawning and rearing habitat for Rogue River salmon.
October 7, 2009
Suit Filed Over Bighorn Sheep Habitat
By Chris Clarke | Posted on October 7, 2009
SAN DIEGO, Calif.— Conservation groups today filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for slashing critical habitat protections for the endangered Peninsular bighorn sheep. In April 2009, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reduced its 2001 habitat designation of 844, 897 acres to just 376,938 acres – a more-than 55-percent reduction. The flawed designation is unsupported by the agency’s own science and was made to accommodate urban sprawl. Today’s lawsuit challenging it was filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, Desert Protective Council, Desert Survivors, and the San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society.
October 3, 2009
Faking the Indian Wars Again
By Chris Clarke | Posted on October 3, 2009
There’s a lot of superficial reporting coming out of Indian Country in northern Arizona this week, with headlines like “Hopi to Environmentalists: Keep Out” emblazoned upon them. The immediate reason is that the Hopi Tribal Council has specifically disinvited the Sierra Club, the NRDC, the National Parks Conservation Association and the Grand Canyon Trust from the Hopi Reservation.
October 3, 2009
The Clade’s Twitter machine works again.
By Chris Clarke | Posted on October 3, 2009
Just a note to contributors. If you didn’t know The Clade had a twitter feed, it’s at twitter.com/theclade. This site should now post an alert to Twitter when you post a new entry— as long as your title isn’t very long.)
September 30, 2009
Court Rules That Southern California Forest Plans Violate Federal Environmental Laws
By Chris Clarke | Posted on September 30, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal district court judge ruled late Tuesday that U.S. Forest Service management plans for four Southern California national forests did not adequately protect those forests’ wildest landscapes.
In the ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel agreed with seven environmental groups that the Forest Service failed to assess cumulative damage to those national forests that would be caused by piecemeal road building and other development in most of the forests’ roadless areas, in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.
August 7, 2009
Blog for Vultures Sept. 4
By Chris Clarke | Posted on August 7, 2009
[From our friends at International Vulture Awareness Day:]
International Vulture Awareness Day 2009 is hosting a blog festival on September 5. IVAD09 invites you to blog about vultures. Write, film, draw or photograph Old or New World vultures and share your post with the world.
July 16, 2009
California’s lucrative wildlife
By Chris Clarke | Posted on July 16, 2009
The US Fish and Wildlife Service released a study this week that examined the benefit to the US economy from birding, indicating that the popular hobby contributes $36 billion annually to the nation’s economy. The report was issued as an addendum to a November 2007 agency study of wildlife-related activities and their economic impact, and reading the coverage of today’s addendum, I became a little curious as to whether the earlier study might shed some light on the continuing issue of whether to cut finding to California’s wildlife-rich state parks.
July 15, 2009
Reward Offered for OHV Vandals Who Trashed Meadow
By Chris Clarke | Posted on July 15, 2009
A press release from the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER):
Sacramento - Conservationists are offering a reward for information leading to the identification and conviction of dirt bikers who damaged a beautiful mountain meadow that is vital habitat for the Yosemite toad, a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act. The damage also compromises an expensive and important five-year research study.
“There is not recreation; this is inexcusable vandalism,” said Karen Schambach, California Coordinator for PEER. “The perpetrators need to be held accountable, and the message needs to get out that this kind of activity will not be tolerated.”
Read more... | Comments (1) | endangered species, off-road vehicles
July 8, 2009
Climate scientists arrested in Brazil
By Chris Clarke | Posted on July 8, 2009
Via Kim Hannula:
Five students (three from the US, two from Brazil) were arrested last month while doing paleoclimate research in Brazil. They were collecting sediment cores from lakes and wetlands, in order to understand past climate change in western Brazil. The charges were based on Brazilian laws dealing with unauthorized extraction of mineral resources. (The group had research permits which they believed to be valid, but apparently they did not cover all members of the group.) The students have been released on bail, but the American students have to stay in Brazil until the legal process is complete - which could take months or years.
Arizona Geology has a full explanation from Dr. Andrew Cohen, co-director of the project. He has drafted a letter to Brazilian authorities, explaining the nature of the work and urging the authorities to allow the students to return to the US. He is looking for people who are willing to co-sign the letter. If you want to co-sign it, send an e-mail to Dr. Cohen. If you know people who would be willing to co-sign (especially people with prestigious affiliations and officers of scientific societies), please pass on the information.
(And if you’re a blogger in the climate science community, could you help make sure that the news is spread to climate scientists as well?)
July 2, 2009
Destroying the Joshua trees in order to save them
By Chris Clarke | Posted on July 2, 2009
The soil here is tawny, pale with a reddish cast, alluvium washed down out of the Black and Date Creek mountain ranges, and the Grayback and Weaver mountains behind them. Wind and flash flood have rendered the rock, pulverized it. Soft lava and old sandstone mix with flecks of harder, brighter granite.
A Harris’ hawk perches atop a saguaro, regards the landscape blankly.
The broad plain slopes southwest, toward Bullard Wash about four miles away. The soil is mainly bare, easily washed away, and so the plain is striped with broad washes that storms have carved into the earth. They run into Bullard Wash as well. The sediment they carry will eventually reach the Colorado, 60 miles away as the Raven flies. It may take a thousand years to get there, or ten thousand, but it will get there.
June 30, 2009
Interior fast-tracks Big Solar on public lands
By Chris Clarke | Posted on June 30, 2009
The Department of the Interior announced Monday that 676,048 acres of public lands — 24 tracts in five Western States — are being fast-tracked for development by the solar electrical generation industry.
The tracts, called Solar Energy Study areas, will be scrutinized to see whether it is feasible to build large-scale power plants of three square miles or more in area on the lands.
In a press release issued by the DoI, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said:
Read more... | Comments (6) | renewable energy, public lands
June 25, 2009
Climate change threat to Joshua trees gets more press
By Chris Clarke | Posted on June 25, 2009
The Riverside Press Enterprise reported Saturday on the increasingly widespread concern that in a century or so, Joshua Tree National Park’s namesake species might not grow there anymore.
The ancient plants are dying in the park, the southern-most boundary of their limited growing region, scientists say. Already finicky reproducers, Joshua trees are the victim of global warming and its symptoms — including fire and drought — plus pollution and the proliferation of non-native plants. Experts expect the Joshuas to vanish entirely from the southern half of the state within a century.
June 23, 2009
Obama: Still Lousy on Endangered Species
By Chris Clarke | Posted on June 23, 2009
From a press release by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility:
Washington, DC — The man named by the Obama administration to administer the Endangered Species Act almost never invoked it to protect wildlife, according to agency statistics released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). In fact, Sam Hamilton, whose nomination to head the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) is now pending, had by far the weakest record on Endangered Species Act enforcement of any comparable official in the country.
June 8, 2009
Stop eating seafood?
By Chris Clarke | Posted on June 8, 2009
A topic for discussion on World Oceans Day: You may be familiar with boycotts of swordfish, non-dolphin-safe tuna, shark fin and the like. You may carry around one of those pocket seafood guides to tell you whether the wild-caught salmon is better than the farm-raised tilapia. Buying seafood while keeping a clear conscience has gotten more and more complex. But marine biologist Jennifer Jacquet has a suggestion to make it all simpler: don’t eat any seafood if you don’t have to.
June 5, 2009
Once lost, now found
By Chris Clarke | Posted on June 5, 2009
Triphysaria versicolor ssp. faucibarbata, also known as smooth owl’s clover, found in the San Francisco Presidio after a 92-year absence.
There’s some good news out of San Francisco these days: Yet another plant long thought extirpated from the Presidio — a decommissioned military base containing some of the last remaining Franciscan habitat in the world — has shown up again.
May 31, 2009
Lake Powell Going Away: The Video
By Chris Clarke | Posted on May 31, 2009
Via Lee Allison, a short time-lapse satellite video of the Colorado River reservoir Lake Powell drying up between 2000 and 2006, exposing the once-flooded Glen Canyon. Water levels are likely to drop even more in the next spate of drought. Bad news for people in Arizona who like to irrigate cotton or tool around on houseboats, but potentially good news for those who want to see a former wonder of the world restored.
May 30, 2009
An environmental hero
By Chris Clarke | Posted on May 30, 2009
CNN brings us an inspiring story of a woman who has made a difference for sea turtles, at no small risk to herself.
“Twenty years ago, this was a graveyard,” Suzan Lakhan Baptiste said of the six-mile stretch of beach near her home.
“The stench was horrendous. You could smell it for miles,” she said.
Saddened and frustrated, Baptiste launched a crusade to help end the slaughter of the gentle giants. Today, she and her group are succeeding: What was once a turtle graveyard is now a maternity ward—one of the largest leatherback nesting colonies in the world.
She did so by facing down poachers armed with machetes, and persuading them that a better life for turtles made a better life for the local humans. Video below the fold.
May 27, 2009
California to close 223 or more State Parks
By Chris Clarke | Posted on May 27, 2009
Though it likely won’t get much press play aside from brief mentions tacked on to coverage of his current proposal to completely de-fund the state’s welfare program, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing to cut $213 million out of the state parks’ budget over the next two years, almost certainly forcing the closure of many of California’s 279 state parks.