Florida Panther (Photo: Rodney Cammauf/National Park Service)

The Importance of Environmental Review

One of the best tools we have to protect wildlife from harmful Corps projects is called “environmental review.” Established under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)—often called the “Magna Carta of environmental policy”—this process requires that the federal government consider the environmental impact of any project before deciding whether and how to proceed. When it works, it ensures that all federal projects (including water resources projects) are completed in a way that is better for wildlife, habitats, and public health. Environmental review is one of the most valuable tools we have to protect wildlife. 

However, the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) — the legislation that Congress uses to guide Corps policy and say which water projects get built by the Army Corps of Engineers — is expected to be voted on by the Senate later this month, and significantly undermines environmental review.  This dangerous environmental streamlining makes it much harder for the public, scientists, and other agencies to have input on Corps projects. And not only does this bill make it harder to stop harmful Corps projects, it also fails to require the Corps to use non-structural and restoration solutions where they will work to solve a problem, despite the fact that these approaches would safeguard wildlife and habitats.  This legislation will have a negative impact on countless vulnerable species and undermine ongoing restoration and conservation efforts. 

Five reasons this bill is bad for wildlife

1. Undermines democracy by weakening public participation.

Under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), all Americans have a legal right to know about and have a say in federal decisions. The NEPA review process is the only way that the public — including hunters, anglers, gardeners, and other outdoor enthusiasts — get to tell the Corps how projects affect them and the wildlife they care about. This WRDA limits public comment periods to either 60 days or 30 days, depending on the type of environmental review. Environmental review statements are often hundreds of pages long and full of dense scientific language: 30 days is barely enough time to read and understand a review, let alone consult experts and submit informed public comments. In addition, this legislation is worded so broadly that it obstructs not only NEPA, but also reviews under the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and other landmark environmental laws.

2. Significantly hampers the ability of other agencies to improve Corps projects.

The environmental review process also requires other agencies, such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to weigh in on Corps projects. By setting arbitrary and unreasonably short deadlines for reviews, imposing higher level reviews of even technical disagreements, and fining agencies up to $20,000 a week for missing deadlines, this legislation makes it much, much harder for agencies to fully evaluate a Corps project. Good science takes time, and the way this legislation changes the environmental review process doesn’t give experts enough time to adequately evaluate the impacts that a project could have on vulnerable fish and wildlife.

3. Tilts the scales of the project permit review towards approval—regardless of potential environmental impacts.

By fining agencies for not meeting these arbitrary deadlines, this Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) penalizes agencies that undertake a full deliberation of important environmental issues.  We fear that, in order to avoid fines, agencies — already facing restricted budgets — will rush to complete reviews even without having all the needed information, increasing the likelihood that environmentally harmful projects will be approved.

4. Doesn’t address the real cause of Corps project delays.

Research has shown that the NEPA review process is not the main cause of delays in federal decisions and projects. Delays are really driven by funding constraints, the Corps’ $60–80 billion project backlog, and the Corps insisting on planning highly destructive and controversial projects when far less damaging approaches are available. Streamlining environmental review is not likely to accelerate completion of Corps projects; but it is highly likely to let Corps projects move forward without a full consideration of the impacts on public safety, wildlife, and ecosystems.

5. Fails to improve the safety of our communities by using floodplains and other natural resources to help protect people and wildlife.

Using low impact solutions — for example, reconnecting streams with floodplains, and other nonstructural restoration measures — is frequently more cost effective and better protects people, wildlife, and the many businesses that rely on healthy rivers, coasts, and wetlands. During the past 20 years, structural Corps projects have played havoc with the nation’s fish and wildlife resources.  During the same period, despite the construction of innumerable federal flood damage reduction projects, the nation’s flood damages have increased at an alarming rate. By continuing to promote environmentally destructive and costly structural projects even when a cheaper and safer nonstructural solution is available, this WRDA puts people and wildlife at risk.

Take Action

Tell your Senator to make sure the Water Resources Development Act is good for wildlife.

Despite decades of pledges to protect the panther, today only about 100 survive in Florida’s dwindling wilderness areas. That’s because, while politicians like to hold press conferences declaring their commitment to protecting the beloved panther, they rarely – if ever – say no to developers who want to bulldoze panther habitat.

The story of Florida Gulf Coast University is a prime example. Craig Pittman of the Tampa Bay Times spent years chronicling the ultimately fruitless effort to protect the panther habitat:

In the mid 1990s, Florida politicians wanted to build a new university on swampy land near Fort Myers that was owned by an influential campaign contributor who wanted to develop all the land around it. Their plan involved destroying 75 acres of wetlands, which required permission from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. After months of study, the corps had not made a decision.

Col. Terry Rice, who ran the corps in Florida, was on an airboat in the Everglades when his cell phone rang. The caller, Rice recalled, began “cussing me out” for delaying the permit for Florida Gulf Coast University. The caller: Connie Mack, then Florida’s Republican U.S. senator.

“He used some terms over the telephone that weren’t very flattering,” Rice said. “It wasn’t a pleasant conversation.” [...]

Mack’s call wasn’t unusual. Public interest is supposed to drive the corps’ decisions, but politicians often lean on the corps on behalf of private interests. Politicians from the president on down say they want to preserve wetlands. But when a well-connected constituent wants help to destroy wetlands, elected officials are quick to oblige.

“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which spends more than $1.2 million a year on panther protection, has not blocked a single development that altered panther habitat,” reported Pittman in his exhaustive 2010 two-part report on the panther. Read part one and part two.

The National Wildlife Federation and the Florida Wildlife Federation, our state affiliate, have spent years fighting to protect the Florida panther. In cases where we felt federal officials used flawed science to allow developers to wipe out critically-needed panther habitat, we’ve gone to court, winning two lawsuits to protect Florida panthers from reckless permitting.

As Pittman has reported, at one point officials even claimed there were too many panthers – that the 78 living panthers were 28 more than needed to sustain the population. That claim was used to justify an expansion of Ft. Myers Airport into panther habitat. The biologist who wrote that report later said his bosses pushed ahead even though the claims were “known by the entire scientific community to be wrong.”

Florida panthers are solitary creatures who require a huge amount of territory – 200 square miles for males, 75 square miles for females. The panthers can be beneficial to people by hunting animals that otherwise breed unchecked to the point of nuisancy- white-tailed deer, feral hogs, armadillos, raccoons and small alligators.

Florida Gulf Coast plays the University of Florida on Friday night at 9:57pm ET and despite having Florida in the final of my bracket, I’ll be rooting for FGCU. How can you not? But I hope that their rise brings renewed attention to the need to protect the Florida panther habitat that their school was literally founded on.

Take Action

Ask President Obama and your members of Congress to protect the Florida panther and other endangered species nationwide  by supporting investments in crucial wildlife conservation programs.

Bahia Honda, a subtropical gem in the Florida Keys, harbors numerous rare plants and animals. Photo © Susan Stein.

Where’s the Native Wildlife?

Miami blue butterfly on Bahia Honda in 2003. This species was last seen on the island in January 2010. Photo: J. Glassberg.

The Miami blue once extended from the Dry Tortugas in the south up along the Florida coasts to about St. Petersburg and Daytona. Its decline resulted from a variety of factors, most notably loss of habitat. On Bahia Honda, however, one of the most significant factors in its recent demise has been a flourishing population of non-native iguanas. These introduced reptiles, which can grow to a yard long, have developed a taste for the young shoots of the gray nickerbean (Caesalpinia bonduc), the host plant for the Miami blue’s eggs and larvae. These ill-tempered and voracious lizards appear to have literally eaten the Miami blues into oblivion on this island.

Iguana basking in gray nickerbean, the host plant for the endangered Miami blue butterfly. Photo © Susan Stein.

And Everglades National Park, one of the nation’s crown jewels, is the epicenter of an invasion of Burmese python, a non-native constrictor snake that research now documents has almost completely wiped out this sensitive ecosystems rabbits, raccoons, deer, and other small mammals. Although the endangered Florida panther may be too large or cautious to be caught and killed directly by these constrictor snakes, by consuming much of the panther’s food source the snake will almost certainly lead to further declines for this endangered large cat.

Stemming the Invasive Tide

Burmese python have nearly wiped out small mammals in portions of Everglades National Park. Photo: by Bob DeGross, National Park Service.

Trying to control these pests once they have established themselves is difficult, costly, and often futile. A far better approach, ecologically and economically, is to keep them out in the first place. One obvious place to start is to better regulate the import of species known to pose a risk to U.S. ecosystems. Last year the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, under pressure from NWF and its partners, made a good start by banning the import of four species of large constrictor snakes that were deemed to present just such a risk.

Unfortunately, bowing to political pressure from a small but vocal lobby of reptile breeders, an additional five constrictor snakes that Fish and Wildlife considers to present an invasion risk, such as the reticulated python and green anaconda, were excluded from that import ban. National Wildlife Federation views the listing of these additional constrictors as “injurious species” under federal law to be a top priority in 2013.

The current system for assessing and limiting imports of invasive and potentially invasive species—designed before the days of lightening fast transcontinental shipping and dramatic expansion of the exotic pet trade—is too slow and unwieldy and badly in need to reform. Fortunately, with NWF support, bills introduced in the last Congress propose common sense reforms that would create a new screening system for evaluating the risk of invasion that species pose, and give the Fish and Wildlife Service greater flexibility and authority to make science-based decisions to prohibit or restrict trade in certain live animals. With the start of a new Congress, reintroduction and passage of bills such as Representative Slaughter’s (D-N.Y.) Invasive Fish and Wildlife Prevention Act is an imperative to better protect our nation from the onslaught of new harmful and costly invasions.

Packing up our campsite back on Bahia Honda in preparation for the long drive home is always bitter sweet. There’s next year’s visit to look forward to, sustained by memories of the snappers we caught this time, and paddles through the mangroves and over the clear waters. But the demise of the Miami blue butterfly on the island—one small but important strand of the key’s biological web—is emblematic of what we already have lost in this “American Paradise.”

How You Can Help

Donate today and help National Wildlife Federation continue to work for wildlife, including Miami blue butterflies and Florida panthers at risk from invasive species.

When Monsters Attack

Non-native fish and wildlife are creating havoc in our eco-systems from Minnesota to Florida. They are decimating the landscape, kicking out native wildlife from their habitats, and costing taxpayers billions of dollars. The sad thing about this plot is that some of these invasions were preventable through improved processes in wildlife importing.

Snakes in the Glades

University of Florida researchers holding a Burmese python caught alive in the Everglades in 2009. Photo courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey.

They pose a serious risk to the endangered Florida panther by competing for the same food sources. The internet is full of photos of battles between these monstrous snakes and powerful alligators.

Their apparent ability to adapt to our southern climates may allow the snakes to migrate further away from the Everglades.

Flying Fish of the Heartland

The south isn’t the only place under invasion from alien creatures. The American heartland is struggling with aquatic aliens collectively known as asian carp. Asian carp is a catchall name for species of silver, bighead, grass, and black carp from Southeast Asia. They were imported in the 1970s to filter pond water in fish farms in Arkansas. Flooding allowed them to escape. They are slowly migrating north up the Mississippi tributaries and there are fears that they will soon reach the Great Lakes. Once established they are virtually impossible to eradicate. Females lay approximately half a million eggs each time they spawn putting pressure on native fish populations. The huge, hard-headed silver carp also pose a threat to boaters. The fish can leap out of the water when startled by boat engines, often colliding with people and causing injuries.

Rodents of Unusual Size

Further south on the Mississippi river a large rodent, known as nutria, is creating a nuisance in the wetlands. Originally imported for the fur trade from South America, nutria currently populate 15 states. They were introduced to Coastal Louisiana in the 1930s and have caused a devastating effect on the fragile Mississippi River Delta. Eating the stems of wetland plants, nutria overgraze a wetland area eventually turning the wetlands to open water.

The Birds

Resembling the Hitchcock film, this flying creature can be found throughout the U.S. and has the claim of the “most hated bird in North America.” The European Starling was imported as a New York businessman’s not-so-brilliant idea to import exotic birds mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays to Central Park. Over 200 million European Starlings are now residents of American farms and cities. These nuisances run off native birds and cause over $800 million in damage to agriculture each year. That’s only the tip of the problems these birds cause.

How to Stop a Monster

All four of these alien invaders have one thing in common—human introduction to North America. The humans may have been well-intentioned, but they did not consider the long-term consequences of bringing exotic wildlife to our country.

There are still no regulations to analyze the risks of non-native species before allowing them to be imported. As a result, native wildlife—and public health—is threatened by additional invasive species. Recently the House of Representatives introduced a bill, the Invasive Fish & Wildlife Prevention Act of 2012, to improve the initial screening process for importing exotic fish and wildlife. While it won’t end the current invasions, it may prevent future ones.

Non-native species create imbalances in our ecosystems, putting endangered wildlife at risk. It costs taxpayers billions of dollars every year to deal with the invaders. It’s time to be proactive about wildlife importations.

Help protect native wildlife, including Florida Panthers, from invasive species like the python.

Here’s a video of the adorable kitten:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Top Threats to Panthers

Sadly, this story is not uncommon in south Florida–home to the only remaining breeding population of panthers–where a sea of strip malls, housing developments and roads continue to destroy and fragment precious habitat. Collisions with motor vehicles are now one of the top causes of panther deaths. In fact, this same kitten’s brother was struck and killed by a car only a few weeks earlier.

Compounding the pressures that panthers are facing from unchecked development are impacts from climate change, threatening the limited habitat that remains. Due to Florida’s very low elevation, panthers are especially vulnerable to the stronger hurricanes and sea level rise that are predicted to inundate their habitat.

Show Your Support on Endangered Species Day

Florida panthers are one of the most endangered mammals on earth, with only about 100-160 remaining. Although they are protected under the Endangered Species Act, panthers are still not protected from the single greatest threat to their survival: habitat loss. And while there have been some wonderful successes in creating corridors to connect habitat areas, they are literally running out of space.

But hope remains for these majestic cats. The National Fish, Wildlife, and Plant Climate Adaptation Strategy and other federal conservation programs that protect panther habitat are crucial to preventing the species–and many others–from going extinct, but they urgently need funding to move forward.

Today is Endangered Species Day, and your voice is needed to ensure decision makers and resource managers have the resources they need to safeguard Florida panthers from extinction.

Show your support for crucial wildlife conservation programs that protect and restore panther habitat.

Jump forward seven years to today, and we are finally seeing the payoff of that court victory. The National Marine Fisheries Service just released a Biological Opinion (pdf) on the effects of the Army Corps’ Nationwide Permits (NWP) program. The results, which are no surprise to NWF, reveal that the NWP program is jeopardizing imperiled species such as salmon, sea lions and sea turtles.

To understand what this means, you need to first understand a few things about the Corps’ permitting process.

Death by a million cuts

Say you are a developer and you want to fill in a wetland so you can erect a building or stabilize a streambank with riprap. You might assume you need to go through the rigorous process of getting an individual permit from the Corps of Engineers, right? Not necessarily. If this specific activity falls into one of the 48 categories given blanket approval by the Corps under its NWP program, you may be able to proceed with little or no review by the Corps. Get ready for your rubber stamp! [Fun fact: until recently, mountaintop removal operations were given blanket authorization to dump their mining waste into streams and waterways under the Nationwide Permit program.]

The Corps of Engineers has argued that the NWP program allows only those activities with minimal environmental impact to move forward. However, the National Marine Fisheries Service has found the Corps has not taken steps to ensure that the impact of these permits do not imperil endangered and threatened fish and wildlife.

As NWF’s Jim Murphy explains:

“We are talking about death by a million cuts with many of these nationwide permits. The destruction of habitat in small increments over time is having substantial impacts on threatened and endangered species like salmon, sea turtles, least terns, piping plovers and even beach mice.”

What happens now?

The Corps must start consulting with the National Marine Fisheries Service on a region-by-region basis to adjust these permits and ensure they do not jeopardize the continued existence of endangered and threatened species. This means Corps districts must start accounting for the impacts, including cumulative impacts, of the use of Nationwide Permits on imperiled species, and stop using nationwide permits in ways that jeopardize those species.  As such, the use of these expedited permits may no longer be allowed in some circumstances where they are now used.

All of this is great news for wildlife, but one key piece is still missing. The Endangered Species Act requires consultation by the Corps with both the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which considers impacts on inland species like interior least tern and piping plovers. So far, the latter has yet to weigh in on the issue. Until they take their seat at the table, it will be difficult to achieve the full range of species’ protections necessary to ensure use of these permits is not putting wildlife at risk.

There are fewer than 200 Florida panthers left in the wild–making it one of the country’s most critically endangered species. You have the power to help save the Florida panther — make sure crucial conservation programs are not gutted by Congress’ efforts to reduce the federal deficit.

If cats have nine lives, an endangered cougar subspecies may be down to its last one. The Florida panther has been a whisker away from extinction for decades, struggling to survive amidst habitat loss, pollution, disease and uncontrolled hunting.  Unfortunately, massive, hungry snakes from overseas are bringing more darkness to the future of this Sunshine State mascot.

Giant Burmese pythons are gorging, hissing and crushing their way through the Florida Everglades. These invasive snakes are gobbling up mammals left and right that serve as the food for panthers.  A new study blames a more than 90 percent drop in wildlife sightings of raccoons, white-tailed deer and bobcats in the Everglades on Burmese pythons. These lethal reptiles have no natural predators in the region, like living in wetlands and can live a year without food. They can also live for up to 25 years, grow over 20 feet long and weight up to 200 pounds.

Irresponsible owners who can’t handle giant predatory pets like Burmese pythons dump them in the wild where the snakes terrorize native wildlife and people. Recently, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service prohibited the importation and interstate transportation and sale of the Burmese python and three other non-native constrictor snakes. However, the agency dropped five other dangerous constrictors from this list. A full restriction of invasive constrictor snakes would save taxpayers money and help endangered species in the Everglades.

There are fewer than 200 Florida panthers left in the wild, and invasive species like the Burmese python are only making the problem worse. Take a moment to take action and keep this American icon from disappearing forever. Click here to see the work the National Wildlife Federation and the Florida Wildlife Federation  are doing to save the Florida panther.

Power plant in Morro Bay, CA via kafka4prez/flickr

Twenty plus years in the making, the new pollution limits on power plants will cut mercury emissions by 91%, reduce acid gas emissions 91%, and significantly cut arsenic, lead and nickel emissions.

Mercury Standards a Long Time Coming

The announcement is a tremendous victory for people and wildlife. National Wildlife Federation’s effort to curb mercury air pollution started back in September 1999 when we released Clean the Rain, Clean the Lakes: Mercury in Rain Is Polluting the Great Lakes (pdf)

The report warned of mercury’s potency as a neurotoxin that can cause neurological and brain damage at low levels in people and reproductive hazards in wildlife.

Excerpt from NWF’s 1999 mercury report:

The Clean the Rain Campaign…will press for the control and eventual elimination of mercury emissions that are contaminating the rain. It will call for the implementation of the following actions…

Coal-fired power plants must cut and eventually eliminate their combustion of coal (a major source of mercury, as well as smog and acid rain-producing pollutants). 

New Rules Will Protect Children, Improve Health, Create Jobs

Each year, EPA’s new air toxic pollution rules will prevent 11,000 thousand of premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks, 130,000 cases of childhood asthma and 6,300 cases of acute bronchitis. And it will prevent mercury exposure to children that can adversely affect their developing brains – including effect on their ability to walk, talk, read and learn.

The rules will also provide employment for thousands. The updating of older power plants with modern air pollution control technology will support 46,000 new short-term construction jobs and 8,000 long-term utility jobs.

And as NWF has documented, the new pollution rules are also a huge present to wildlife. Mercury pollution belching out of power plants settles in our lakes and rivers where microscopic organisms convert the inorganic mercury into methylmercury. This form of mercury accumulates up the food chain in fish and then other into other animals when they eat fish. As a result, species from the common loon to the river otter to the Florida panther are impacted by mercury.

Read NWF’s report Game Changers: Air Pollution, a Warming Climate, and the Troubled Future for America’s Hunting and Fishing Heritage that shows how mercury, carbon dioxide, and other air pollutants are directly impacting numerous species, including black ducks, moose, and walleye, that are revered as part of our country’s angling, hunting and conservation heritage.

Over the last year, thousands of NWF members and supporters have continued the campaign started in 1999. They have attended public hearings, signed postcards, made phone calls, and sent over 50,000 messages supporting the EPA’s new efforts on mercury and pushing back against polluters attempts in Congress to stop these new air pollution protections.

So join NWF as we thank the EPA for taking action to protect your kids and wildlife from the dangers of mercury and toxic air pollution. Together, we can all breathe a little easier.

Learn more about mercury pollution >>

Cougars were extirpated from Connecticut many decades ago, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently declared the eastern cougar subspecies that once lived there officially extinct throughout its range in the East.  This particular South Dakotan cougar met a sad ending after its long journey when it was struck by a car and killed.

Despite these facts, the story still has a silver lining. It demonstrates that if the habitat exists, given enough time certain wildlife species might just be able to recolonize areas where they have been wiped out by human activity.

Who knows how many more western cougars are moving eastward in search of new territory?  There’s plenty of prey in the form of  white-tailed deer, which have become overabundant in many eastern states due to the lack of their primary predators: namely wolves and cougars.  Given strong protections for both the cats and their potential habitat, one day in the distant future we might see breeding cougar populations in the East again.

Watch this clip of NWF’s Vice President of Wildlife Conservation John Kostyack on Fox’s America Live show to learn more about this amazing Connecticut cougar and then adopt its critically endangered Florida panther cousin through NWF’s symbolic wildlife adoption program.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Doing this was a blast.  Mo’Nique was a hoot, but she was a little intimidated by the wildlife, so I did the segment with her co-host Rodney and the other guest on the show, who was none other than the infamous Flavor Flav.  The segment is worth watching for that alone.

Click here to view the embedded video.