JUNE 2, 2005

Court says federal agency doing little for endangered sturgeon

BY SUSAN GALLAGHER area known to be failing in the Service should have no problem Associated Press recovery and survival of the meeting the Dec. 1 deadline. species," Molloy wrote in his order HELENA -- The U.S. Fish and released last week. "It's one river," Greenwald said. Wildlife Service is not doing enough "They know what the habitat is. to help the Kootenai River white His ruling came in a case filed by This isn't an unreasonable or big job sturgeon, a fish on a "slow train to the Center for Biological Diversity to do." extinction" as females age and and The Ecology Center, which reproduction idles, a federal judge charged the Fish and Wildlife Adding the rocky river bottom says. Service and U.S. Army Corps of could extend the critical habitat by Engineers have fallen short in a couple of miles, he said. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy helping white sturgeon. Operation The Fish and Wildlife Service had of Missoula set a Dec. 1 deadline of 's , which told the court there is no evidence for the agency to redraw the white opened in 1974 and is managed by another stretch of the Kootenai sturgeon's "critical habitat," a the corps, is considered a primary River would be more effective for protected area with the features reason for the decline of the fish. sturgeon reproduction. necessary for survival of North The dam reduced the high Kootenai America's largest freshwater fish. It River flows that white sturgeon Molloy said that in defending Fish has been on the federal endangered need for reproduction. and Wildlife and the Corps of species list since 1994. Engineers, the government relied on Fish and Wildlife spokesman Tom evidence that the present critical The present critical habitat is an 11- Buckley of Spokane, Wash., said habitat is where sturgeon spawn, mile stretch of the Kootenai River agency officials were discussing the but turned "a blind eye to the in Idaho with a sandy bottom. court order Thursday and would obvious -- current spawning is not Under Molloy's order, Fish and not comment until later. Talking getting the job done." The goal for Wildlife must extend the protected about the order's possible effects species protected under the habitat to include river bottom at Libby Dam without first knowing Endangered Species Act is not rocky enough to support spawning what Fish and Wildlife plans would merely to keep them in existence, by sturgeon, a fish that can weigh be premature, said Steven but to make them strong enough for hundreds of pounds and live 80 Cosgrove, a corps spokesman in removal from the endangered list, years or longer. Seattle. Molloy said. "There is no rational explanation for Noah Greenwald of the Center for (Fish and Wildlife's) decision to limit Biological Diversity in Portland, The white sturgeon inhabits the a critical habitat designation to an Ore., said the Fish and Wildlife Kootenai River from Kootenai Falls in Montana to Kootenay in , a distance of about 168 miles. In recent years the population has been supplemented by young white sturgeon from a tribal fish hatchery at Bonners Ferry, Idaho.