Help for the Murrelet

After several years of work, the Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released in December the draft Environmental Impact Statement (dEIS)  for six alternative Long-Term Conservation Strategies for the endangered Marbled Murrelet. The dEIS is now available for public review and input. Once the preferred strategy is selected, it will replace the interim strategy that has been in place since 1997. 

But wait.

After so much time and effort, it turns out that not one of the alternatives actually does anything to save the murrelets nesting in our forested state lands. In fact, under scientific analysis, each Alternative--even the most conservative Alternative F--is associated with a downward population trajectory over the next fifty years.

Fortunately, a coalition of conservation organizations has developed a Conservation Alternative and now the coalition needs your support to encourage the DNR and USFWS to consider this alternative. 

You don't need to be a policy expert to support the Conservation Alternative. If you support the work of your local Audubon chapter, Washington Audubon, the Seattle Audubon Society, the Washington Environmental Council, Conservation Northwest, Defenders of Wildlife, the Olympic Forest Coalition, the Washington Forest Law Center, or the Sierra Club--the organizations that together developed a Conservation Alternative you can feel good about supporting this.

In a nutshell...

Conservation Alternative aims to achieve the following biological goals for the marbled murrelet population in Washington State (adapted from the 2008 Science Team Report and 1997 Recovery Plan:

1.  a stable or increasing population for at least a 10-year period 

2.  an increasing geographic distribution

3.  a population that is resilient to disturbances (stochastic events such as wind throw, wildfire, and insect outbreak)

The Conservation Alternative is based on Alternative F, but recommends the following additional protections:

 1. All current and future habitat within the next 50 years and/or

 2. All Emphasis Areas and Special Habitat Areas from Alt. E (collectively “Conservation Areas” when combined with Marbled Murrelet Management Areas)

3. No-touch 150 m buffers around all occupied sites and old forest in the Olympic Experimental State Forest planning unit as mapped by the 2008 Science Team.

Now what?

Please take a moment to send a letter or e-mail by Thursday March 9 at 5 p.m. (Only written comment is being accepted in this process).  Submit your comments online at sepacenter@dnr.wa.gov or SEPA Center, PO Box 47015, Olympia, WA 98504-7015. 

Please include the file number "12-042001" on letters and postcards and in the subject line of comments send by e-mail. 

If you are short on time...simply write this: 

Please request that Board of Natural Resources analyze a Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS before they selected a preferred alternative.  

If you have another few minutes and would like to add more, here are some suggestions: 

Predicted population decline: All six of the current strategies being considered by the DNR show a declining population trend for the next 50 years. None of the alternatives contribute to Marbled Murrelet survival and recovery. This is demonstrated by the DNR's own population modeling. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Recent uplisting to “endangered.” In December 2016, the Marbled Murrelet’s status was uplisted from a “threatened” to the more serious “endangered” by the Washington Fish & Wildlife Commission. The dEIS Alternatives do not properly reflect this imperiled state, as evidenced by the ongoing population decline in the dEIS population viability analysis and by the 44% smaller population size (from 2001-2015) documented in the 2016 status review. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Best-available science: Alternative F, which is based on the 2008 Science Team Report, comes closest to reaching Marbled Murrelet recovery goals, but unfortunately this alternative does not include important, more recent scientific findings. For example, a 2015 study identified the regional importance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca as a "hotspot," not previously recognized, of murrelet at-sea density adjacent to high/higher quality nesting habitat. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

“Bridge” habitat: DNR-managed lands contain approximately 15% (213,000 acres) of all existing Marbled Murrelet habitat in the state, and this habitat is needed to serve as a temporal "bridge" to support the bird's population over the next 30-50 years while it is most vulnerable to extirpation. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Harvest volumes: Alternatives A-E set harvest volumes between 35,000 and 49,000 acres DNR's best option for protecting Marbled Murrelets, Alternative F, allows the harvest of 25,000 acres of mature forest habitat that is needed for the population to stabilize and recover. The DNR and USFWS should consider a stronger, more effective alternative with considerably lower harvest volumes to prevent the local extinction of the Marbled Murrelet. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Precautionary approach: Without explicit population recovery criteria at the state or federal levels, the adopted LTCS Alternative could preclude murrelet recovery if it does not preserve enough existing and future habitat.  Under these conditions, a precautionary approach—as outlined in the Conservation Alternative—is appropriate. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Mitigation for loss of high-quality habitat: The restoration of low quality habitat over time does not adequately mitigate for the loss of higher-quality habitat that currently exists.  Washington’s murrelet population cannot afford further habitat losses in its imperiled status, or it may become functionally extirpated before future, low quality habitat is restored gradually over time. If murrelets become functionally extirpated from Washington, the lack of genetic flow and genetic variability will become a more significant threat to the persistence of the species at the range-wide scale. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Edge-effects: Not all of the dEIS Alternatives adequately ameliorate the edge effects associated with habitat fragmentation.  For example, Alternatives A and B completely lack contiguous, blocked-up Conservation Areas.  Alternative F stipulates that Marbled Murrelet Management Areas only have a 50% habitat target in the Olympic Experimental State Forest; this insufficient for achieving one of the goals of the Conservation Areas—to minimize edge effects. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Buffers. Buffers on occupied sites of 100 meters or less (Alt. A-F) are too narrow to protect murrelet nests from predators, a suboptimal microclimate, and/or wind throw. Buffers of 150 meters should be part of the preferred alternative. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative, which provides for these buffers, in a Supplemental EIS.

Make the talking points your own. Add information about your experience or or expertise on the marbled murrelet. Thank you for your help. If you are not filled with warm and fuzzy feelings about this bird, please click the chick for more photographs of this unique, endearing, and imperiled seabird. And a photo a literal bottle of marbled merlot. 

Court Victory for Marbled Murrelets

A federal district court today in Washington, D.C., maintained conservation protections for marbled murrelets, a unique coastal bird in the Pacific Northwest. The court rejected the remaining claims in a timber industry lawsuit that sought to expand logging of the seabird’s old-growth forest nesting habitat.

The lawsuit was the timber industry’s fourth attempt in the past decade to eliminate protections for the old-growth forests that marbled murrelets call home, despite undisputed scientific evidence that murrelets are continuing to disappear from the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California.

The district court rejected logging industry claims that murrelets in central California could not be considered part of the protected population. The court also refused to eliminate murrelet critical habitat protections during a three-year period when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will re-examine its 1996 critical habitat designation.

 Read the press release from Earthjustice, the Seattle-based lawfirm representing the following conservation groups who intervened on behalf of the marbled murrelet: The Audubon Society of Portland, the Center for Biological Diversity, Conservation Northwest, the Sierra Club, Environmental Protection Information Center, Seattle Audubon Society, and Oregon Wild. 

  Go merlits!

Photo of ready-to-fledge murrelet www.hamerenvironmental.com

10 Acronyms to Save the Murrelet

What you see here is a marbled murrelet's one chance to maintain its population every year. This endangered seabird is the size of a robin but lays an egg the size of a chicken's egg on a wide, mossy branch high in the mature and old-growth coastal forests of the Pacific Northwest. 

The forests the murrelet requires for successful nesting are found on federal, state, and private lands. Despite being protected as a threatened species under federal and state Endangered Species Acts since the early 1990s, the marbled murrelet's population is crashing and our federal and state agencies seem incapable of making meaningful changes to the way they manage the forests. The logging of our old-growth forests has left us with less than five percent of our orginal forests. Yet the logging continues--stand by stand, patch by patch, tree by tree. The murrelet and other species continue to decline.

Acre by acre, stand by stand, tree by tree we are shrinking, lowering, degrading our forests. (photo by MM Ruth)

 In Washington state, where I live,  the Department of Natural Resources manages 2 million acres of state forest land for marbled murrelets. Some of these forests actually have trees occupied by nesting murrelets, others have potential nesting trees, others have trees that were once used for nesting but are no longer suitable. There if very little "old-growth" left and there seems to be little effort being made to grow our younger forests into old-growth. 

Right now, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is working on its Long Term Conservation Strategy for the marbled murrelet--a strategy that includes public involvement. This fall, there will be an opportunity for you--yes, you--to support conservation of the marbled murrelet and the forests it needs to survive. Don't let busyness or shyness hold you back. To make it easy for you to get in the loop, to understand the lingo (acronymese), and to get engaged, I have written a short primer called Acronym for Advocates. There are just ten to learn (you probably know some of them already).

Click here to read it--and pass it on! If you don't start now, it might be too late for the murrelet.

If you are thinking, "Hey, I'm not a bird person. Heck! I can't even pronounce marbled murrelet," you should read the primer anyway. The marbled murrelet is just one of hundreds of animals that depend on the mature and old-growth forest for survival. Whatever steps you take for the murrelet, you take for these other species as well. 

If you want to learn more about the development of the Long Term Conservation Strategy, click here.

"Against Forgetting"

I make my way slowly through each issue of Orion magazine--taking two months to read the July/August issue. I have been reading one article by Derrick Jensen several times. It must be because this article begs to be memorized. The article is called "Against Forgetting: It's hard to fight for what you don't know you've lost." This is from Jensen's regular Orion column called "Upping the Stakes."

"Against Forgetting" is about a phenomenon called "declining baselines," which Derrick Jensen describes as the "process of becoming accustomed to and accepting as normal worsening conditions." In his article, the worsening conditions are the dwindling numbers of animals once common in nature. Jensen has many examples from the natural world--gray foxes, black bear, salmon, spiders, sowbugs, and hummingbirds whose numbers he has personally noticed diminishing over the past several years.

As these and other once-common animals become scarce, our relationship to those animals vanishes, our memory of them fades. Once we have forgotten what it was like to see the sky full of fireflies, butterflies, hummingbirds, or marbled murrelets, we lose interest in fighting for these living things. Life's not sooo bad without fireflies is it? Is an different without How many marbled murrelets do we really need? A forest of 100-year-old Douglas-firs is pretty impressive--does anyone really miss groves of old-growth trees? 

This kind of thinking is dangerous. And here is what Derrick Jensen says to do about it:

 "I want you to go outside. I want you to listen to the (disappearing frogs), to watch the (disappearing) fireflies. Even if you're in a city--especially if you are in a city--I want you to picture the land as it was before the land was built over. I want ou to feel how it was then, feel how it wants to be. I want you to begin keeping a claneder of who ou see and when: the first day each year you see buttercups, the first day forgs stargin singing, the last day you see robins in the fall, the first day for grasshoppers. In short, I want you to pay attention.

If you do this, your baseline will stop declining, because you'll have a record of what's being lost.

Do not go numb in the face of this data. Do not turn away. I want you to feel the pain...we should want this pain to stop not because we get used to it and it just doesn't bother us anymore, but because we stop the injustices and destruction that are causing the pain in the first place. I want us to feel how awful the destruction is, and then act from this feeling.

And I promise you two things. One: feeling this pain won't kill you. And two: not feeling this pain, continuing to go numb and avoid it, will."

To read more of Derrick Jensen's writing, please visit his website. 

To get a copy of the July/August 2013 issue of Orion magazine, please click here. 

Lost: A juvenile Red-breasted Sapsucker, a common bird in mixed forests, found in my front yard--once a mixed forest.