Many Habitat Conservation Plans Found to Lack Key Data
12/23/97
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Headline: Many Habitat Conservation Plans Found to Lack Key Data
Source: The New York Times
Date: 12/23/97
Author: Carol Kaesuk Yoon
Agreements that allow landowners to destroy or harass members of
endangered species in exchange for pledges to compensate for their
actions suffer from a variety of problems, chief among them a lack
of key biological information, the first large-scale scientific study
of the plans has found.
The agreements, known as habitat conservation plans, or HCPs, are
viewed by some as a long overdue compromise between landowners and
conservationists, and by others as a dangerous sellout of the
Endangered Species Act.
A team of 119 scientists who studied the plans reported this month
that they can work well -- particularly when enough is known about
the biology of the species involved. However, for the vast majority
of species, the crucial scientific information does not exist, making
reliable planning difficult or impossible.
In addition, researchers uncovered a wide array of problems, from the
misuse of scientific methods and biological data to the
implementation of procedures that while intended to protect
populations, were likely to do the opposite.
"There are a huge number of HCPs that probably should not have been
written," said Dr. Peter Kareiva, an ecologist at the University of
Washington who organized the effort by 106 graduate students and 13
professors from eight universities. "That's a pretty gloomy message.
On the other hand, people have said there's no science in HCPs and
that's just not the case. Where the information exists maybe half get
the science pretty well."
The researchers, financed by the National Science Foundation and the
American Institute for Biological Sciences, reported their results at
a workshop at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and
Synthesis at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
"This is, by far, the greatest scientific scrutiny that has been
brought to bear" on habitat conservation plans, said Dr. David
Wilcove, senior ecologist at the Environmental Defense Fund and an
outside evaluator at the workshop. Like others, he said the study
provided the first quantification of problems many were already aware
of.
A 1982 amendment to the Endangered Species Act allows landowners to
take actions, for example the building of a mall, that could harm a
listed species, if the landowners submit a habitat conservation plan
for mitigating the impact. The plans are approved by the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service.
The new study comes at a time of keen interest in these ever more
popular plans. Laura Hood, policy analyst at Defenders of Wildlife,
said numerous organizations, including her own, and the National
Audubon Society, National Wildlife Federation and Natural Resources
Defense Council, had recently been gathering information on the
habitat conservation plans.
Yet in spite of intense interest, researchers discovered that
surprisingly little was known about the plans; they said there was
not even a central list of those that had been approved. The team
evaluated 206 plans in total and 44 plans in detail, with graduate
students gathering data on individual plans.
Amanda Stanley, a graduate student at the University of Washington,
said she and another student spent approximately 400 hours tracking
down data on a single complex plan involving 1.6 million acres and a
host of species, including the spotted owl. Plans varied tremendously
in size, from over a million acres to less than half an acre.
The most glaring problem researchers found was a crippling lack of
biological data. Even the most basic information, like life span, was
lacking for a third of the species.
In addition, crucial information on such things as rates of change in
population sizes and habitat were not known for the vast majority of
species. For example, rates at which populations were waxing or
waning in the area of the proposed plan were missing in 80 percent of
the species examined.
Despite the lack of data, the study found that habitat plans
typically did an adequate job of determining both the status of
populations and of estimating the number of individuals to be
harassed or killed.
Scientists said the plans were much weaker, however, in the next
crucial step: estimating the impact of those losses on the greater
population. "I think the results are clear," said Dr. Peter Brussard,
a conservation biologist at University of Nevada at Reno. "In terms
of actually assessing the impact of an HCP on a species, the HCPs
fell flat on their face."
In addition, researchers said methods used to mitigate the impact
were generally untested, making the likelihood of success impossible
to predict. Worse still, some of the plans proposed mitigation
strategies that were already known to do more harm than good.
Dr. Sandy Andelman, a conservation biologist at the University of
California at Santa Barbara, said one plan proposed to protect Utah
Prairie Dogs by moving animals to a new location, a technique that
had already been shown to result in the death of 97 percent of
relocated animals within three months.
The most consistent problem, however, was monitoring, with plans for
56 percent of the species deemed inadequate.
The range of problems did not surprise Steve Landino, program manager
for the Habitat Conservation Planning Program for the National Marine
Fisheries Service's northwest region and an outside evaluator at the
workshop.
He said such problems remain because "we don't want to make it so
hard to do our plans that people won't try to do them," adding, "We
want to encourage people to come in to get permits."
To reach the happy medium "somewhere between 'We need to do a 20-year
study before we do anything' and 'Let's cobble this thing together
next week,' " Brussard said, requires a clear outline of requirements
for a scientifically sound plan.
Kareiva described the handbook for preparing habitat plans as very
vague. He said the team of researchers would continue analyzing the
large database now assembled in an attempt to prescribe such things
as the minimum amount of data required and to provide guidelines for
tailoring plans to such things as the amount of scientific
information available and the types of threats to the species.
In the meantime, Landino said, those in the trenches will simply
proceed with the plans. "We're not going to stop doing them," he
said. "We're going to be doing more of them."