Conservation groups served notice on Friday that they would file suit accusing the federal government of failing to protect leatherback sea turtles along the U.S. West Coast as required under the Endangered Species Act.
The three groups said the National Marine Fisheries Service, a U.S. Commerce Department agency, missed a January 5 deadline for designating Pacific habitat critical to the survival of leatherbacks, listed as an endangered species since 1970.
The notice of intent gives the agency 60 days to resolve the situation before a lawsuit is filed in federal court.
Leatherbacks, which can grow to more than 6 feet in length and weigh 
nearly 200 pounds, are believed to number in the thousands throughout the entire Pacific, with the biggest human threats to them posed by commercial fishing operations.
"They are the largest, deepest-diving sea turtles left on the planet," said Chris Pincetich, a marine biologist at the Turtle Island Restoration Network.
"They've survived the extinction of the dinosaurs, but ... they may have as little as 10 years left."
Joining his group in threatening legal action were the Center for Biological Diversity and the conservation group Oceana.
The Fisheries Service last year proposed designating 70,000 square miles of ocean off the coast of California, Oregon and Washington state as critical habitat for leatherbacks that migrate there from Indonesian nesting 
grounds to feed on jelly fish. But those regulations have yet to be finalized.
The proposed rules would require any changes in fishery management or approval of other commercial activities in the habitat area to take the well-being of the turtles into consideration.
In 1992, the government took what was regarded as a major step toward safeguarding all sea turtles when it began requiring shrimp trawling nets to be equipped with special devices that help prevent turtles from being swept up.
Jim Milbury, a spokesman for the Fisheries Service, declined to comment on the legal action by the three groups.
The groups said some 2,100 adult female leatherbacks are believed to 
inhabit the entire Pacific, but a precise estimate for males is impossible to come by, because they spend their entire lifetime at sea. Females can only be counted when they crawl onto beaches to lay their eggs, Pincetich said.
Determining a sustainable population target is difficult, he said, but environmentalists would eventually like to see them number in the millions in the Pacific.
Source:
Reuters,"Conservationists push action on protected turtles", accessed February 4, 2011
The Obama administration is setting aside 187,000 square miles (484,330 sq. kilometers) in Alaska as a "critical habitat" for polar bears, an action that could add restrictions to future offshore drilling for oil and gas.
The total, which includes large areas of sea ice off the Alaska coast, is about 13,000 square miles (33,670 sq. kilometers), or 8.3 million acres (3.36 million hectares), less than in a preliminary plan released last year.
Tom Strickland, assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks at the 
Interior Department, said the designation would help polar bears stave off extinction, recognizing that the greatest threat is the melting of Arctic sea ice caused by climate change.
"This critical habitat designation enables us to work with federal partners to ensure their actions within its boundaries do not harm polar bear populations," Strickland said. "We will continue to work toward comprehensive strategies for the long-term survival of this iconic species."
Designation of critical habitat does not in itself block economic activity or other development, but requires federal officials to consider whether a proposed action would adversely affect the polar bear's habitat and interfere with its recovery.
Nearly 95 percent of the designated habitat is sea ice in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas off Alaska's northern coast. Polar bears spend most of their lives on frozen ocean where they hunt seals, breed and travel.
Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell and the state's oil and gas industry had 
complained that the preliminary plan released last year was too large and dramatically underestimated the potential economic impact. The designation could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in lost economic activity and tax revenue, they said.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said reductions included in the final rule were mostly due to corrections that more accurately reflect the U.S. border in the Arctic Ocean. Five U.S. Air Force radar sites were exempted from the final rule, as were Native Alaskan communities in 
Barrow and Kaktovik, Alaska.
The Interior Department has declared polar bears "threatened," or likely to become endangered, citing a dramatic loss of sea ice. Officials face a Dec. 23 deadline to explain why the bears were listed as threatened instead of the more protective "endangered."
Kassie Siegel, a lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity, an 
environmental group that has filed a lawsuit to increase protections for the polar bear, hailed the designation of critical habitat.
"Now we need the Obama administration to actually make it mean something so we can write the bear's recovery plan – not its obituary," she said.
Siegel called for the administration to impose a moratorium on oil and gas drilling in bear habitat areas. "An oil spill there would be a catastrophe," she said. "That seems like an understatement."
The Arctic Slope Regional Corp., which advocates for Alaska Native 
business interests, said in a statement that the decision disproportionately impacts Alaska Natives and called the designation the "wrong tool" for conserving the polar bear because it does nothing to address climate change.
"The burden of the impacts will be felt by the people of the Arctic Slope," said Tara Sweeney, vice president of external affairs for ASRC, which is based in Barrow, Alaska. "This is a quality of life issue for our people."
Kara Moriarty, deputy director of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, 
said the action would hurt oil and gas exploration in Alaska by creating more delays and added costs to projects in what already is a high-cost environment, she said.
"The companies and the industry will be required to go through more permitting and create mitigation measures without a direct benefit to the polar bear or oil and gas development," Moriarty said. "The Fish and Wildlife Service has found over and over again our activities pose no threat to the polar bear."
Source:
The Guardian, "US sets aside 'critical habitat' for polar bear in Alaska", accessed December 6, 2010
Conservation groups served notice on Friday that they would file suit accusing the federal government of failing to protect leatherback sea turtles along the U.S. West Coast as required under the Endangered Species Act.
nearly 200 pounds, are believed to number in the thousands throughout the entire Pacific, with the biggest human threats to them posed by commercial fishing operations.
Joining his group in threatening legal action were the Center for Biological Diversity and the conservation group Oceana.
grounds to feed on jelly fish. But those regulations have yet to be finalized.
inhabit the entire Pacific, but a precise estimate for males is impossible to come by, because they spend their entire lifetime at sea. Females can only be counted when they crawl onto beaches to lay their eggs, Pincetich said.
