Green~Mammy
05-18-2008, 02:40 AM
US gives up on the Jaguar
By Laurel and Kevin
For the first time in the history of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has officially decided against the recovery of an endangered species. A decision signed in January by USFWS Director Dale Hall ends the development of a recovery plan for the jaguar, North America’s largest cat and an elusive feline resident of the southwestern deserts. The decision demolishes any effort to aid the recovery of the jaguar in all of its US habitat.
“This is a jaguar death sentence,” said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity.
To justify this death sentence, the USFWS claims that the jaguar’s historic and current range lies entirely outside of the US. However, this claim is widely accepted to be false. Verified reports indicate a historic breeding population far north of the border. A female jaguar with kittens was killed near the Grand Canyon at the turn of the last century, and the last confirmed female jaguar in the US was shot in the White Mountains of Arizona in 1963. Reports of sightings and shootings dropped off sharply in the 1970s, as landowners began to fear consequences from the newly passed ESA.
Jaguars are currently being photographed by motion-activated cameras in the mountains of southern Arizona. Individuals can be identified by the distinctive markings on their coats, proving that the jaguars in the US are established residents rather than occasional transients. The USFWS decision states that “regular or intermittent use of the borderlands area by wide-ranging males” is not reason enough to enact a recovery plan. Given the secretive habits of the cats and the limited area of study, it seems impossible to know whether the Arizona jaguars are limited to males or if there is a healthy breeding population.
The decision also states, “Actions taken within the US are likely to benefit a small number of individual jaguars peripheral to the species, with little potential to effect recovery of the species as whole.” This goes against the experience of other species with ranges that cross international borders, including grizzly bears and Mexican gray wolves, both of which have benefited from recovery plans within the US.
The claim that the jaguar would not benefit from a recovery plan comes at a time when the jaguar’s habitat is threatened as never before. Conservation efforts south of the US border have not been enough to stop the species’ decline. In addition, the forces of climate change are sending many species into the northern parts of their ranges and beyond—a survival route that could become unavailable to the jaguar if its northern habitat is walled off.
Construction of a militarized wall along the entire border is in the process of disturbing jaguar habitat and dividing the population that now travels from one side to the other. The 2005 Real ID Act allows Homeland Security to suspend any US law, including the ESA, in order to construct the border wall (see EF!J January-February 2007). The Real ID Act has already been invoked to justify building the wall through the San Pedro and Tijuana riparian areas. The same policy would apply to jaguar habitat designated in a recovery plan, but not without a major showdown over the beautiful and much-admired predators. By abandoning the jaguar recovery plan, the USFWS is attempting to avoid a public relations nightmare that could threaten the Real ID act itself. Until the agency is held accountable, fragmentation of jaguar habitat by the border wall, housing developments and other threats is likely to continue, while conservation planning will be crippled.
Kevin has lived in the Sonoran Desert for more than a quarter century and loves all its plants and animals, except buffel grass and that one plant whose seedpods stick to your socks and crumble into itchy bits when you try to take them off. Laurel’s home range is the Siskiyous, where the rivers flow year-round.
* This article was reprinted from here http://www.earthfirstjournal.org/article.php?id=348 in my May issue of CO-OP News the once monthly newspaper my Food CO-OP puts out. (Food Conspiracy CO-OP http://foodconspiracy.org/)
By Laurel and Kevin
For the first time in the history of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has officially decided against the recovery of an endangered species. A decision signed in January by USFWS Director Dale Hall ends the development of a recovery plan for the jaguar, North America’s largest cat and an elusive feline resident of the southwestern deserts. The decision demolishes any effort to aid the recovery of the jaguar in all of its US habitat.
“This is a jaguar death sentence,” said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity.
To justify this death sentence, the USFWS claims that the jaguar’s historic and current range lies entirely outside of the US. However, this claim is widely accepted to be false. Verified reports indicate a historic breeding population far north of the border. A female jaguar with kittens was killed near the Grand Canyon at the turn of the last century, and the last confirmed female jaguar in the US was shot in the White Mountains of Arizona in 1963. Reports of sightings and shootings dropped off sharply in the 1970s, as landowners began to fear consequences from the newly passed ESA.
Jaguars are currently being photographed by motion-activated cameras in the mountains of southern Arizona. Individuals can be identified by the distinctive markings on their coats, proving that the jaguars in the US are established residents rather than occasional transients. The USFWS decision states that “regular or intermittent use of the borderlands area by wide-ranging males” is not reason enough to enact a recovery plan. Given the secretive habits of the cats and the limited area of study, it seems impossible to know whether the Arizona jaguars are limited to males or if there is a healthy breeding population.
The decision also states, “Actions taken within the US are likely to benefit a small number of individual jaguars peripheral to the species, with little potential to effect recovery of the species as whole.” This goes against the experience of other species with ranges that cross international borders, including grizzly bears and Mexican gray wolves, both of which have benefited from recovery plans within the US.
The claim that the jaguar would not benefit from a recovery plan comes at a time when the jaguar’s habitat is threatened as never before. Conservation efforts south of the US border have not been enough to stop the species’ decline. In addition, the forces of climate change are sending many species into the northern parts of their ranges and beyond—a survival route that could become unavailable to the jaguar if its northern habitat is walled off.
Construction of a militarized wall along the entire border is in the process of disturbing jaguar habitat and dividing the population that now travels from one side to the other. The 2005 Real ID Act allows Homeland Security to suspend any US law, including the ESA, in order to construct the border wall (see EF!J January-February 2007). The Real ID Act has already been invoked to justify building the wall through the San Pedro and Tijuana riparian areas. The same policy would apply to jaguar habitat designated in a recovery plan, but not without a major showdown over the beautiful and much-admired predators. By abandoning the jaguar recovery plan, the USFWS is attempting to avoid a public relations nightmare that could threaten the Real ID act itself. Until the agency is held accountable, fragmentation of jaguar habitat by the border wall, housing developments and other threats is likely to continue, while conservation planning will be crippled.
Kevin has lived in the Sonoran Desert for more than a quarter century and loves all its plants and animals, except buffel grass and that one plant whose seedpods stick to your socks and crumble into itchy bits when you try to take them off. Laurel’s home range is the Siskiyous, where the rivers flow year-round.
* This article was reprinted from here http://www.earthfirstjournal.org/article.php?id=348 in my May issue of CO-OP News the once monthly newspaper my Food CO-OP puts out. (Food Conspiracy CO-OP http://foodconspiracy.org/)