Three Keers for Science!

Thank you all Marbled Murreleteers who have been supporting a Science-based conservation strategy for this imperiled species in Washington state. It's been a long haul (at least two years of monthly meetings with the Board of Natural Resources), but today the board approved an expanded range of alternatives including one based on the 2008 Science Team report (officially known as Recommendations and Suporting Analysis of Conservation Opportunities for the Marbled Murrelet Long-Term Conservation Strategy, (Raphael, M.G., S.K. Nelson, P. Swedeen et al). 

Additionally, the board approved adding and amending other alternatives to create a total of six alternatives, one including expanded buffers (from 100 meters to 150 meters) around occupied nest sites. It is unlikely this expanded buffer will be approved, but it is important that buffers with meaningful and documented conservation value be analyzed for comparison to less buffer-generous alternatives.

This is a big victory! Thanks to all the individuals, staff of the Washington Forest Law Center, the Murrelet Survival Project and partners, and many Audubon chapters who have been providing public comment in person or in writing lo these many months. Every voice matters--truly. And we seem to have a board that listens.

Kyle Blum of Department of Natural Resources has done a remarkable job getting all the stakeholders to this point. It's amazing how complex, time-consuming, and fraught the conservation of such a little bird can become. The members of the BNR (with one notable and unnamed exception) should be praised for their engagement in the material presented and for their insightful questions all along the way. This is how we get to a win-win. Maybe even a win-win-win if we are lucky.

Up Next: More analysis by the DNR and USFWS. This is just the end of one phase and the beginning of the intense scrutinizing the environmental impacts of each alternative strategy. We are probably looking at summer/fall for a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) and opportunities for Murreleteers and others to provide comment. Adding and modifying alternatives will extend the time line to reach an approved Long-Term Conservation Strategy--but what's a few months given the interim strategy has been in place since 1997!

Murrelet Expert Addresses Board

Renowned murrelet researcher, Dr. Martin Raphael will be making a special presentation at the September 1st Board of Natural Resources (BNR) meeting in Olympia.

Raphael is a Research Wildlife Biologist of 26 years with the USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station in Olympia and co-author of the Recommendations and Supporting Analysis of Conservation Opportunities for the Marbled Murrelet Long-Term Conservation Strategy. Funded by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), this important report is more commonly known as the 2008 Science Team Report.

Dr. Raphael will discuss why Washington's state-forest lands are crucial to the survival of the marbled murrelet. There is an unfortunate impression among members of the BNR board that because "only" 11% of Washington's marbled murrelet habitat is managed by the state (DNR) that this habitat is not crucial to the survival of this species in its listed range--a federally threatened species in Washington, Oregon, and California under the Endangered Species Act.

Of the estimated 2,099,900 acres of forested habitat for the marbled murrelet in Washington, the DNR manages 238,900 acres; the federal government 1,446,800 acres (national parks, national forests, etc); and private and tribal entities manage 414,200 acres.

Habitat losses across all land ownerships--primarily from logging and forest fire--are too great to provide the quantity and quality of nesting habitat critical to the marbled murrelet's survival.  In the next few months, the DNR has an opportunity to make a significant contribution to the survival and recovery of this species--and adopting a conservation strategy based on the 2008 Science Team Report would go a long way toward that laudable goal.

The only scientists the BNR board members have heard from during their monthly meetings are employed by the DNR. Dr. Raphael's presentation comes at the behest of the conservation community, which has been urging theDNR staff to adopt a conservation strategy based on the best-available science and to add to the three alternatives strategies under consideration a fourth based on the 2008 Science Team Report.

The DNR has been managing its forested trust lands in accordance with a 1997 Habitat Conservation Plan, a document created when little science was available on the biology and behavior of the elusive, secretive marbled murrelet and its well-hidden nesting sites. The DNR's progress updating this document has been as slow and awkward as an alcid on land.

The conservation community worked hard for Dr. Raphael to be invited to speak to the Board of Natural Resources. Your attendance at the September 1 meeting would be greatly appreciated.  The meeting begins at 9 a.m., Raphael's presentation starts at 9:30 and is schedule to last 30 minutes. Their will be a chair report by DNR's Kyle Blum on the Marbled Murrelet Long-Term Conservation Strategy and Sustainable Harvest Calculation at 11:20.

There is an opportunity for public comment at 11 a.m. If you wish to speak, please arrive by 8:50 to sign in.  If you do not wish to speak, be sure to pick up a marbled murrelet button to wear to show your support. The meeting is held in the Natural Resources Building, 1111 Washington St. SE, Olympia.

You can also submit written comments to the BNR, MS 47000, Olympia, WA 98504-7000 or bnr@dnr.wa.gov

If you cannot make the meeting, Dr. Raphael's presentation can be viewed as a PDF through the BNR's website. Scan down to September 1 "Meeting Materials" and click on "Marbled Murrelet Modeling Presentation."  Everyone will benefit from Dr. Raphael's narrative.

Please note, the BNR will not be presented with or be voting on any strategy alternative at this meeting.  For the most up-to-date information on all things murrelet, please visit the Murrelet Survival Project.

UW Dawgs and the Marbled Murrelet

Please join me at the University of Washington's Anderson Hall on Tuesday April 1 at 3:30 for my presentation, "The Trouble with Murrelets: Discovering and Recovering a Rare Bird." I will be talking about this fascinating seabird, the 185-year-long search to find its nesting site, and the impact of the nest discovery on the forests of the Pacific Northwest and on murrelet conservation.

This free event is sponsored by UW's School of Environmental and Forest Sciences and is open the students, faculty, and the public. There is a reception after where I'll be selling and signing copies of my book, Rare Bird: Pursuing the Mystery of the Marbled Murrelet (Mountaineers Books, 2013).

Marbled Murrelets and DNR Clear-cutting

“The opponents make an emotional issue that these are the last acres available when in fact they’re not."

These are the words of Peter Goldmark, Commissioner of Public Lands in Washington, as part of his response on KUOW to the conservation community's opposition to 200+ acres of clear-cutting he approved yesterday. Though the trees being logged are younger trees, they are  closely adjacent to known nesting trees and within a block of forest identified as some of the highest-quality marbled murrelet nesting habitat in in Washington State.

Goldmark is clearly out of touch with what "the opponents" are doing, with what is happening to the forests he manages, and is on his way to leaving a legacy of destruction and degradation or our state forest lands.

Firstly, opponents are not making this an emotional issue. We are not tree-hugging cry babies. We are asking the Department of Natural Resources, which manages 1.3 million acres of forest state trust land within the range of the marbled murrelet,  to heed the recommendations in the 2008 Science Team Report the DNR funded. Our lower lips do not even quiver when we ask DNR to do this.

I attended the Tuesday meeting of the Board of Natural Resource, which reviews all timber sales before (mostly) approving them. I spoke at this meeting as did several members of the conservation community, including the Olympic Forest Coalition, the Sierra Club, and the dedicated lawyers at the Washington Forest Law Center. These--and many other conservation organizations (aka "the opposition") are passionate about murrelets, and owls, and forests in the Evergreen State,

A juvenile marbled murrelet on its nest in the forest.     Photo courtesy Hamer Environmental.

But passionate is not the same as emotional. We ground our comments in the best-available science. Though we might express that we are fond of marbled murrelets, we do not sob or plead.

Nor do we tear up when we suggest that the DNR use a precautionary principle and complete its long-overdue Long-Term Conservation Strategy for the Marbled Murrelet before considering clear-cuts within large blocks of nesting habitat. This strategy is now in the works, but seems the DNR is not inclined to ensure it is a solidly science-based document, one that serves the trust beneficiaries and the wildlife.

Peter Goldmark's comment--that we believe the 200 acres of forest he and his board approved unanimously on Tuesday are the "last acres available" is not true. No one has said this.

Since logging began in earnest in Washington in the 1840s, we have lost 90% of our mature and old-growth forests. Are the "last acres" in the remnant 10% of these forests?

According to a 2012 report on the status of the Lower 48 marbled murrelets published by a team of highly respected murrelet biologists, Washington State has suffered the largest losses of nesting habitat between 1996 and 2006--more than Oregon, more than California. The 2012 Annual Report of the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife states, "From 1996 to 2006, model-defined potential nesting habitat in Washington declined by an estimated 252, 600 ac out of 2.3 million ac (~11%). Most of this loss (>90%) was attributed to timber harvest."

The remaining 2.05 milion acres exist not in one contiguous block, but in fragments and patches on federal, state, and private land across western Washington. Marbled murrelet nesting habitat on these acres is being lost primarily through logging on non-federal lands. These fragmented forests are being further lost through windstorms, such as the one in December of 2007 that took out an estimated 2000 acres of occupied  habitat. It is being lost through disease and fire. We have lost 90% of our forests incrementally--through industrial-scale logging and through a thousand small cuts.

How many acres are the last acres? Do Peter Goldmark and the BNR know "in fact" where these last acres are? And will they stop rubber-stamping timber sales when we identify them? And do they mean "in fact" acres--as in more than one acre--so 2 acres? Or will they use the more technical definition of, say,  1.5 acres?

By this point, yes, we will all be sobbing and pleading.

Meanwhile, read or listen to the KUOW report here.