California: Fisher relocation is ultimate in fake species restoration without habitat allocation
California Department of Fish and Game taking steps to adopt a
controversial and precedent-setting plan to move 40 Pacific fisher –
captured from public and private lands in northwestern California –
and release them onto heavily logged lands owned by Sierra Pacific
Industries (SPI) in the northern Sierra Nevada.
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words: http://www.sierraforestlegacy.org/TA_ActionAlerts/TA_ActionAlerts.php
The project is the result of a joint venture between the
Schwarzenegger and Bush administrations, designed to give landowner
SPI protection from future restrictions on its environmentally
devastating logging practices–restrictions that may be necessary to
protect at-risk wildlife. The region where the fisher will be released
is known as SPI’s “Stirling Management Area” and includes
approximately 160,000 acres between Highway 32 in Tehama County, and
the North Fork of the Feather River in Butte and Plumas Counties, and
Highway 70.
The proposal violates state and federal environmental laws
because of the significance of the potential harmful impacts, the
failure to examine alternatives as required by CEQA and NEPA, and
because it could establish a harmful and scientifically baseless
precedent that SPI’s clearcutting practices are beneficial to the
fisher and other forest-dependent wildlife. Last year, the Yreka
office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service entered into a
“Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances” (CCAA) with SPI,
which pledges that SPI will not be held accountable for the next 20
years for “incidental take” of Pacific fisher resulting from any of
its activities.
The accompanying permit states “no additional
conservation measures or additional land, water, or resource use
restrictions, beyond those voluntarily agreed to and described in the
CCAA, will be required should the fisher become listed as a threatened
or endangered species for the duration of the permit period.”
Incredibly, the purported conservation measures “voluntarily agreed
to” are nothing more than business as usual for SPI, which is to
convert through clearcutting native forest into uniform tree
plantations across nearly 2 million acres of its land ownership in
California.
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words: http://www.sierraforestlegacy.org/TA_ActionAlerts/TA_ActionAlerts.php
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http://planetsave.com/blog/2009/03/01/fishy-deal-relocates-rare-pacific-fishers-to-logging-area/
Despite vocal opposition from the public and conservation groups ForestEthics and Sierra Forest Legacy, California will soon move 40 Pacific fishers from a healthy habitat along the North Coast to land owned by logging company Sierra Pacific Industries along the Southern Cascades.
The California Department of Fish and Game’s stated intention is to rebuild colonies of the small mammals that have long vanished, but conservationists argue that the likelihood of success is slim. Sierra Pacific Industries is notorious for their harsh, pesticide-laden logging practices, so some worry the animal will not thrive on their land.
The fisher is a rare species that while is not considered threatened or endangered on federal or California endangered species lists, is under consideration to be added due to their sharp decline from trapping, mining, logging, and wildfires.
According to the agreement, Sierra Pacific Industries would not have to change their logging practices if the fisher were added to the endangered species list. They get a full exemption from all the requirements such a listing would normally carry.
“This ‘extraordinary rendition’ of the Pacific Fisher is a dangerously misguided idea,” said Josh Buswell of ForestEthics. “Imagine the state capturing California Sea Otters from Monterey Bay and plopping them down at the Port of Los Angeles. The displacement of the Fisher is, sadly, no less foolish.”