Endangered INSIDE THIS ISSUE earth l Long Way Home The jaguar—despite a wild Unsafe Harbor population just 130 miles south of Arizona’s border with Court blocks Shell Oil plan to drill in Mexico—faces a much longer road back to the U.S. ...page 2 Beaufort Sea offshore of Arctic Refuge he Beaufort Sea off the north temporary reprieve Aug. 15, when l Program News coast of Alaska is a seasonally the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Penguins march toward Tfrozen home to threatened and issued an injunction blocking Shell’s protection, we say no to endangered animals such as bowhead dangerous designs. snagging sea turtles, beach whales, polar bears, and spectacled The rapidly shrinking sea ice in mice trump Gulf Coast resorts eiders. Unfortunately, it is also severely the Beaufort Sea threatens to drive again, and more. ...page 4 threatened by the intertwined forces polar bears to extinction by mid- of global warming and oil development— century or sooner. If the species is to most recently, by Shell Oil’s plans to have any hope of survival, we must not l D.C. Update: Inside the Beltway drill exploratory wells in waters only drastically reduce greenhouse gas Every dodo gets its day in just offshore of the Arctic National emissions to slow the warming of the an administration hostile to Wildlife Refuge. Arctic, but also protect the bear’s critical science and endangered But thanks to the efforts of the habitat from industrial developments. species. ...page 7 Center and our allies, the Beaufort Shell’s exploration plan—recently Sea and its imperiled denizens won a approved by the Bush administration— l In Remembrance Two longtime supporters leave lasting legacies to plants and wildlife. ...page 10 would do just the opposite, presenting a double-barreled threat to the species. First, oil drilling and associated activities would directly disturb denning mother bears and their cubs and bring a risk of catastrophic oil spills. Compounding that harm, any oil extracted would eventually be burned, resulting in more atmosphere-polluting greenhouse gases and further fueling Arctic warming and concomitant sea-ice loss. The federal Minerals Management Service recently Photo (c) Thomas D. Mangelsen/Imagesofnaturestock.com approved Shell’s drilling plan, With NASA satellite data showing record ice melt in the Arctic for the summer of granting a permit for exploration 2007, the polar bear’s survival appears to be on thinner ice than ever. Yet the Bush over the objections of its own administration continues to collude with oil companies to open the bear’s fragile scientists, the Center, and a coalition habitat to more drilling, even as it continues to duck responsibility for reducing U.S. of conservation and Alaska native greenhouse gas emissions. Unsafe Harbor continued on back page 12 WWW.BIOLOGICALDIVERSITY.ORG FALL 2007 CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY FALL 2007 1 ADVOCACY SPOTLIGHT Michael J. Robinson, Conservation Advocate Long Way Home The last decade has seen the return of the jaguar to southern Arizona and New Mexico—just a remote corner of its former U.S. homelands. But it’s a road fraught with obstacles: political obstacles, and now, a more insurmountable barrier. he largest cat in North America as recently as 15,000 years ago. Texas prairies sported jaguar skin is back. Competition with wolves may have quivers, holster coverings, saddle cloths, T Four individual jaguars have contributed to its decline. and caparisons (ornamental coverings been confirmed in New Mexico When Europeans arrived in North for horses). In San Antonio, jaguar pelts and Arizona since 1996; numerous America, jaguars ranged from the cost $18 apiece. others have been reported. But as Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. They Still, according to America’s jaguars return to the Southwest were reported as far north as North foremost 19th-century scientist, the from Mexico, they still face the Carolina, the Texas government predator control that Panhandle, Colorado’s helped eliminate them in the 20th Rocky Mountains, century, and although some of the the Grand Canyon, elusive feline’s habitat has been and along Monterey improved through Center victories Bay, Calif.—in almost restricting livestock grazing, that every conceivable habitat is still under siege. ecosystem ranging Worst of all, a jaguar-proof from low desert to wall is being constructed along the high mountains and international border. Underlying from arid grasslands and perpetuating these woes like to piney woods—and a psychic wall, the government they ranged all agency that killed off jaguars the way south to suffers amnesia about their former similar climates and widespread presence in the United landforms in South States—and will not lift a finger to America. aid in recovery. By the early 1800s, jaguars had Extermination to the Edge of a been eliminated from Once-grand Range the southeastern The first written record of United States. In jaguars in the United States stems the Southwest, early from the 1540-1542 expedition Spanish authorities of conquistador Francisco Vásquez offered bounties for de Coronado, which encountered jaguars in order to “leopards” along the upper Gila protect livestock. River. Fossil remains from as far Jaguars were also afield as Washington, Nebraska, and widely hunted for Maryland indicate that the jaguar their striking pelage, developed from a larger evolutionary a pursuit aided by progenitor in North America, which horses introduced by colonized South America 600,000 the Spanish. In the years ago, shrunk in size, and lost 1840s and 1850s, its northernmost range—perhaps Comanches on the Photo by Robin Silver 2 CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY FALL 2007 Smithsonian Institution’s Spencer F. expedition reported a large “tiger” in the western Mojave Desert. The state’s Baird—who accompanied an army 1853 on the Canadian River in the last reported jaguar was shot in 1860 border expedition—a “vast number” of Texas Panhandle west of Oklahoma; the outside Palm Springs after it attacked a jaguars subsisted on “numerous herds last jaguar on the Great Plains in Texas Native American who was hunting with a of wild cattle, mustang, mules, and was killed in 1910, and the last on the deer-head disguise. horses, besides plentiful other game in Great Plains of northern New Mexico Whereas habitat loss, bounties, and the fertile valleys and tablelands of the was killed “some years” prior fur hunting eliminated jaguars from the Lower Rio Bravo, Nueces, and other to 1938, when its skin was on display. Southeast, Texas, and California, jaguar Texan rivers.” Naturalist John James In the Rocky Mountains, at the immigration from Mexico replenished Audubon reported that Texas rangers headwaters of the South Platte River, a the big cats’ numbers in Arizona and happened upon a jaguar feeding on a mountain man reported a “leopard” in New Mexico. mustang, “surrounded by eight or ten 1843. John James Audubon reported But in 1915, a systematic federal hungry wolves, which dared not interfere jaguars at the headwaters of the Rio predator extermination program was or approach too near.” Grande River as well. initiated, targeting jaguars as a matter of But the last two jaguars in southern In California in 1855, two jaguar policy and also killing them incidentally Texas were killed on the Gulf Coast cubs were observed with their parents in 1946 and 1948. Another army in the Tehachapi Mountains overlooking Jaguar continued on page 8 Photos courtesy of Landon Lockett Sign of the Times: Historic newspaper clippings like these heralded hard times ahead for jaguars on the northern side of the U.S.-Mexico border. The shot "beast" in the 1948 clipping (left) was one of the last few remaining wild jaguars in southern Texas. 10 CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY FALL 2007 CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY FALL 2007 3 P rogrAM NEWS.......... Ten penguin species could be unable to build as 80 degrees Fahrenheit. as a result of drowning march toward protection shells, dramatically affecting Global warming’s relentless in longline and gillnet Responding to Center all of the area’s species. rise in temperatures fishing equipment targeting actions, the U.S. Fish and The Center authored the threatens pikas by swordfish and tuna. Wildlife Service advanced November 2006 petition shortening available food- In 2006, the Bush the emperor penguin and to place the penguins on gathering time, affecting administration proposed to nine other penguin species the federal endangered plant variety, reducing issue a permit allowing toward federal Endangered species list, an action the insulating snowpack, and drift-gillnet vessels to Species Act protection this Service said in July “may most directly, killing pikas fish for swordfish in July. The primary threats to be warranted.” through overheating. the leatherback feeding penguins are global warming, Great Basin and area off California, an industrial fisheries, and Petitions seek protection Yosemite National Park area previously closed ocean acidification. for warming-threatened researchers have found to gillnetting as a result that the pika’s range is of Center litigation. New American pika already retreating upslope Center opposition caused On Oct. 1, the Center as temperatures warm, and the government to delay petitioned the U.S. Fish more than a third of pika the gillnet permit in 2006 and Wildlife Service to populations in the Great and finally abandon it in protect the American Basin mountains have June 2007. pika—a heat-sensitive gone extinct. But less than a week alpine mammal—under ob Fleming B Our federal petition after withdrawing the gillnet the federal Endangered requests protection for the permit, the administration Species Act. This action Photo by pika in the lower 48 states proposed allowing longline comes less than two months African penguin from global warming and fishing for swordfish in after we petitioned to list The Pointe Geologie other threats, which also the same leatherback the pika under California’s would provide impetus feeding area.