Groups Detail Rollbacks of Federal Wildlife Protections By Administration; Legal Action to Protect Florida Manatee Announced

4/17/2002

From: Laurie Macdonald of Defenders of Wildlife, 727-821-9585; Helen Spivey of Save the Manatee Club, 407-539-0990; Eric Glitzenstein of Meyer & Glitzenstein, 202-588-5206

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., April 17 -- The Bush Administration has engaged in a wide-ranging assault on environmental and wildlife protections, according to "Open Season on America's Wildlife: The Bush Administration's Attacks on Federal Wildlife Protections," a new report released today by a coalition of national environmental groups.

Among a series of actions by groups around the country to respond to these attacks, The Save the Manatee Club and Defenders of Wildlife today announced a court action intended to force the federal government to abide by the terms of a settlement agreement to protect manatees in Florida, where they are being killed by boats in record numbers this year because of the inadequacy of federal and state protections.

According to Patrick Rose, manatee biologist and director of government relations for the Save the Manatee Club, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has refused to follow through with its commitments to ensure that manatees are expeditiously protected from high speed boating deaths and injuries: "It is especially troubling to see the Service spending time and money to adopt special interest exemptions to manatee protection rules when they claim limited resources are preventing them from adopting the sorely needed and agreed upon additional protections for manatees. This further reinforces our concerns that big money politics, not science, is driving the Fish and Wildlife Service's manatee agenda," he said. Rose noted that, yesterday, the Bush Administration formally proposed to create a special "exception" so that a boat manufacturer could continue to conduct high-speed tests in one of the few federal "refuges" that has been created for manatees.

According to the report, however, manatees are one of several species facing shrinking protection under the Bush Administration.

"The manatee is one among many examples of what the national environmental community has identified as a clear, massive, and -- we believe -- undeniable strategy on the part of the Bush Administration and its appointees from industry to use the president's executive authority to weaken, undermine and subvert the nation's environmental protection laws to benefit their big corporate supporters," said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife.

A coalition of groups, led by Save the Manatee Club, is filing a motion to enforce a historic settlement agreement on manatee protection with the FWS and the U.S. Corps of Engineers. The settlement agreement was the result of a lawsuit brought by the coalition against the federal agencies over their failures to adequately protect the endangered Florida manatee and comply with several federal environmental laws. One of the central features of the settlement agreement was a commitment by the FWS to designate new manatee refuges and sanctuaries throughout Florida by September 2001. The Bush Administration, however, has flagrantly violated this legal obligation by failing to designate 14 of the 16 areas proposed by the FWS for designation, and by announcing that it will "defer" action on those and other manatee areas until at least December 2002, more than a year after the legal deadline. The coalition's motion asks a U.S. District Court to order the Bush Administration to comply with the settlement agreement, including the requirement to designate new manatee refuges and sanctuaries. The coalition is being represented by the public-interest law firm Meyer & Glitzenstein.

"Open Season on America's Wildlife" describes several ways the Bush Administration is ignoring or undermining the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and key wildlife protections. Among the examples:

-- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has failed to comply with a court ruling to address the impacts of its Nationwide Permits (NWPs) on the critically-endangered cactus ferruginous and instead continues to authorize development under the permits, threatening the owl, its habitat and the acclaimed Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan in Pima County, Arizona.

-- Administration officials continue putting the needs of big irrigation interests first in addressing the problems of the water-starved Klamath Basin of California Oregon. This contradicts a federal court ruling requiring adherence to the ESA and Native American treaty obligations to protect imperilled fish at risk of extinction due to low flows and reduced water quality resulting from massive commercial irrigation projects.

The report finds that the administration has repeatedly tried to rollback or failed to defend important wildlife and habitat protections from court challenges. Faced with a host of industry lawsuits challenging ESA critical habitat designations, the Administration has refused to defend any of them. It chose not to fight the timber industry's many lawsuits against the Forest Service's Roadless Area Conservation Rule, and instead improperly suspended forest protection rules that had been based on scientific recommendations and massive public input. The administration's replacement regulations are expected to eliminate a host of key wildlife protections, including the longstanding requirement that national forests maintain viable populations of wildlife species.

The Bush Administration has also sided with extractive industries -- particularly oil and gas companies -- in opening sensitive wildlife habitats to heavy industry. Grizzly bears on the Rocky Mountain Front, California condors, the Florida manatee, sharks, Pacific salmon, and a host of other species have seen vital parts of their habitat encroached upon and even eliminated for the benefit of energy, timber, mining and other corporations. The report details cases of administration officials distorting or disguising the best information provided by federal wildlife and other scientists in an effort to secure policy outcomes opposed by sound science, but favorable to business interests.

Defenders of Wildlife is a leading non-profit conservation organization recognized as one of the nation's most progressive advocates for wildlife and its habitat. With more than 425,000 members and supporters, including 37,600 in Florida, Defenders of Wildlife is an effective leader on endangered species issues. To stay current on hot topics in wildlife conservation, please visit http://www.defenders.org

Established in 1981 by former Florida Governor Bob Graham and singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett, Save the Manatee Club (SMC) is an award-winning, national non-profit organization with over 40,000 members. Save the Manatee Club promotes public awareness and education, sponsors research, rescue, and rehabilitation efforts; advocates; and takes effective legal action in order to ensure better protection for manatees and their habitat. See http://www.savethemanatee.org.