United State Fish and Wildlife Service 4401 N. Fairfax Drive Arlington, VA 22203 Re: Docket No FWS-HQ-ES-2013-0073; Removing the Gray Wolf (Canis lupus) from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Maintaining Protections for the Mexican Wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) by listing it as endangered. Dear United States Fish and Wildlife Service: We at the Atlantic States Chapter of the Sierra Club vehemently oppose United States Fish and Wildlife Service’s Proposed Rule to delist the Gray Wolves from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife 78 Fed. Reg. 35664 (June 13, 2013 “Proposed Rule.”) It is essentially the same as the 2011 attempt to remove Canis lupus from the Endangered Species list and it has no more merit now than it did then. Taxonomy This proposal presents a new taxonomic classification of the wolf in the Northeast in a radical departure traditional taxonomy. It revises the well-accepted current understanding of the gray wolf’s current and historical range. It holds that only the Mexican wolf, Canis lupus baileyi still merits federal protection. In the Northeast, this would remove protections from the Eastern Timber Wolf, leaving the subspecies Canis lupus lycaon defined as a new species which will no longer have a status, but will be under status review. Further, any gray wolves who come into New York State will also be unprotected because Canis lupus will no longer be a federally endangered species. Yet, here in New York State, Canis lupus is considered an “extirpated species” on the New York State Department of Conservation” Endangered and Threatened Species” list. When wolves have come into this state, and by the evidence in Ferenac and Roland’s isotopic investigation into the diet of wolves found in New York State, wild wolves do come to New York State , they would no longer have any protection from being capriciously killed if this proposal were to go through(1). In the Northeast, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts and Maine all have suitable wolf habitat. We are also alarmed because the Service’s proposed removal of federal protection for wolves in the Northeast will undermine the natural recovery of wolves in the Northeast and is inconsistent with the Service’s Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf (1992). The Recovery Plan states that its primary objective is to “maintain and reestablish viable populations of the eastern timber wolf in as much of its former range as feasible.” Indeed, the Recovery Plan specifically identifies northern New York as one of the areas that could support a viable wolf population: The Plan’s basic approach to eastern timber wolf recovery is, and has always been, to try to ensure that there be at least two viable populations of wolves within the historic range in the United States. The requirement for more than a single recovery population stems from the basic concept of conservation biology that a species can never be assumed to be secure from extinction if only a single population exists…. The only satisfactory means of reducing the threat of extinction from an unexpected catastrophe is to ensure that more than a single population is established prior to declaring the species recovery… the Eastern Timber Wolf Recovery Team has always recognized that the Minnesota population represents a viable population. …The Eastern Timber Wolf Recovery Team … recommended…characterizing “viable population” in two different ways: 1 A population of at least 200 wolves established at a distance greater than 200 miles from the Minnesota population (e.g. northern New York or Northern Maine…2) a smaller population (greater than 100 wolves ) in Wisconsin/Michigan. (Recovery Plan, 24) This Recovery Plan emphasized: As the Service has previously acknowledged, there would be “extensive and significant gaps” in the wolf’s range without a wolf population in the Northeast; thus, removing federal protection for wolves in the Northeast – and in New York in particular – as the Service now proposes would undermine the Recovery Plan’s “primary objective” to reestablish wolf populations in as much of its former range as possible. Abandoning the possibility of wolf recovery in the Northeast is a contravention of the Endangered Species Act. Range: Secondly, we disagree with the Service’s comment that all or parts of 29 southern and eastern states ….were not within the gray wolf’s historical range.(2) You include Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Caroline, Georgia, Florida, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Indiana and Illinois as places which are not within the historic range of the wolf. Yet, as recently as 2011, a study entitled “A Genome-wide Perspective on the Evolutionary History of Enigmatic Wolf-like Canids” by von Holdt et al, published in Genome Research contends that “We find a coyote-wolf admixture zone that stretched from Southern Texas to the Great Lakes and the Northeastern US. This admixture zone is the largest in area ever described for a terrestrial vertebrate and is testimony to the dispersal ability of wolf-like canids as well as the influence of anthropogenic activities.” (Von Holdt, p. 1302, emphasis added) This study used over 48,000 nuclear SNP markers to analyze 259 animals, making it the largest genetic study of any vertebrate group.(2) You assert that that C. Lupus is no longer threatened in a significant portion of its range assessed in a manner contrary to the principles foundational to the Endangered Species Act. The Fish and Wildlife Service looks at the gray wolf’s range not only in North America, but also in areas such a Europe, North Central and South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa 978 Fed Reg. at 35715. But the purpose of the Act is to protect species within the United States. The concern over the genetic differences between subspecies of wolves inside the United States is reason to value the diversity of wolves all over regions of Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. As the FWS, you are not charged with assessing the status of wolves of other nations nor are you qualified to do so. Other wildlife agencies also disagree with your view of range, such as the Michigan Department of Natural Resources whose website proclaims: “Six species of mammals are extirpated in Maryland, or no longer can be found wild in the state. These species include the Gray wolf, American elk, Eastern mountain lion, Snowshoe hare, American marten and Eastern harvest mouse.” This indicates that if the gray wolf were not here, it is not the accepted view amongst wildlife agencies, as well as not accepted by the majority of scientists. We found that National Geographic News quoted Thomas J. Healy, head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services Northeast regional office, as saying that recent DNA tests at the agencys Oregon labs confirmed it is the first gray wolf found in New England since a 1993 case in upstate Maine with regard to a wolf found in 2008 within Maine. (4) So as recently as 2008, it was a gray wolf here in New England not a separate species, and other wolves have been captured in New England in recent times. This proposal is a new interpretation of old information regarding genetic diversity within the Canis genus which has been adopted just prior to trotting out a justification for delisting Canis lupus and leaving its subspecies both without status review and without protection despite its rarity. It is a revision of hundreds of years of traditional natural history which held that the wild canid species extirpated from the Northeast was a subspecies of Canis lupus, and that the wild canid which comes in from Canada is also this subspecies, the Eastern Timber Wolf. This species hasn’t changed except to become phenomenally rare in the East. Its original range has not changed. This is a semantic argument. This proposal skewed interpretation of a minority of the data to justify a conclusion that changes the meaning of Federal law. This is a horrifying precedent. This proposal cannot be permitted to be approved in a country which values fairness towards all species and freedom from extirpation and extinction. Absence of Peer Review: This facet of the review of the status of the gray wolf particularly outrages the Atlantic Chapter. We witnessed our former New York State Mammalogist, Roland Kays, as well as Dr. Jon Vucetich of Michigan Technological University and Dr. Robert Wayne of the University of California-Los Angeles having been blocked from the process of peer-review by the Department of the Interior in the wake of the Fish and Wildlife’s objection to the members on the peer-review panel.(5) Our Northeastern Perspective: In conclusion, there are specific reasons why different regions of the United States ought to be outraged by this proposal. Courts have already pronounced that the simultaneous creation of a new species and delisting of that species is not consistent with the Act.(6) Even if the Fish and Wildlife were to conclude that C. lupus lycaon is not a subspecies but its own species C. lycaon, they must leave ESA protections in place for C. lyacaon, until such time as they are able to conclude that a change in the protection of the species is warranted, according to the provisions of the Act. A change in the protection of the species is not the same as the elimination of the protection of the species and it should not precede status review. As we know, worldwide, one quarter of all mammals are facing extinction as reported by the United Nations in 2002 in the Journal Science. As ecologists examine some of the positive results of species reintroduction in the West, they have found wide range effects including the regulation of coyote populations through competition for food. (7) Now is hardly the time to weaken the application of the Federal Endangered Species Act nor to abandon the goal of reestablishing ecological balance in the Northeast. We anticipate the FWS will be backing away from this radical proposal and replacing it with a reasonable and defensible proposal which expresses the intention and actuality of the Endangered Species Act by continuing to protect wild canid species. Thank you for your consideration of our arguments. “In Wilderness (and Wildlife) is the Preservation of the World” – John Muir. Endnotes: 1) R. Kays and R.S. Feranec, “Using Stable Carbon Isotopes to Distinguish Wild from Captive Wolves”, in Northeastern Naturalist, Volume 18, Number 3, 2011 2) “A Genome-wide Perspective on the Evolutionary History of Enigmatic Wolf-like Canids” by Bridgett von Holdt, John P. Pollinger, Dent Earl, James Knowles, Adam Boyko, Heidi Parker, Eli Geffen, Malgorzata Pilot, Roland Kays, Carolos Bustamante, Elaine Ostrander, John Novembre, and Robert Wayne in Genome Research, 2011 21:1294-1305 3) dnr.state.md.us/wildlife/Plants_Wildlife/mammals.asp 4) news.nationalgeographic/news/2008/03/080305-AP-wolf-return.html 5) Public Employees for Environmental responsibility (PEER), Press release: Gray Wolf peer Review Panel Purged by Agency (August 8, 2013). 6) Humane Society v. Kempthorne, 579 F. Supp 2d 7, 17 (D.C. cir. 2008) (holding that the FWS’ simultaneous designation and delisting of DPS is not consistent with the intent of the Act.) 7) Kim Murray Berger and Eric M. Gese, “Does interference competition with wolves limit the distribution and abundance of coyotes?” in Journal of Animal Ecology, 2007, 76, 1075-1085. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Posted on: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 17:32:53 +0000
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