West Coast Bird Gets Protection, Although Less Than `Endangered'
Listing
12/17/99
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: West Coast bird gets protection; `Critical habitat' label
not as strong as endangered listing
Source: The Associated Press
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 17, 1999
GRANTS PASS, Ore., Dec. 17 - Under court order, the federal
government has declared large stretches of West Coast beaches as
critical habitat for the Western snowy plover. The designation of
18,000 acres comes nearly 12 years after environmentalists first
petitioned to protect the shore bird as a threatened species.
MADE UP primarily of state and federal public beaches where the birds
already nest and spend the winter, the areas cover 180 miles, or
about 10 percent, of the coastline in Washington, Oregon and
California.
"This designation is long overdue," said Wendell Wood of the Oregon
Natural Resources Council, which petitioned to list the plover a
threatened species in 1988. The bird was listed in 1993.
"It's just incredible to us how much effort the conservation
community has to expend to get the Fish and Wildlife Service to
simply do their job," he said.
The plover is only the 113th of the 1,197 plants and animals
protected by the Endangered Species Act to get the critical habitat
designation required by law. About 2,000 of the birds remain from
southern Washington to southern Baja California in Mexico.
Numbers of the Western snowy plover plummeted largely because of the
introduction of European beach grass around the turn of the century
to stabilize sand dunes.
The grass wiped out broad open stretches of sand where the bird lays
its speckled eggs in a shallow depression and gave predators a place
to hide while stealing eggs. The birds are also vulnerable to beach
buggies, people and dogs, which may drive them off their nests.
The critical habitat includes two sites in Washington, seven in
Oregon, and 19 in California.
Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Pat Foulk said since a congressional
moratorium on listing new species expired in 1996, the agency has
concentrated on evaluating which species warranted listing as
threatened or endangered.
The agency considers a listing more effective at protecting a species
than designating critical habitat. It had until this month to map
places on the West Coast that the plover needs for nesting and
feeding.
Critical habitat is not the same as a sanctuary, but the designation
does require federal agencies and federally sponsored projects on
private land to consult Fish and Wildlife before going ahead with
development.