Recently in Endangered species Category

The latest  meeting of the international commission created to manage harvests of tunas and other wide-ranging fish species in the Atlantic Ocean ended by setting 2010 quotas for bluefin tuna that  conservation groups and  United States fisheries officials said were -- while lowered -- still far too high to allow the imperiled fish to recover. (from DotEarth)

The government of Monaco proposed a ban on international trade of bluefin tuna, and was  initially supported by the European Union and the U.S. It won't be hard for people who know the fish to recognize bluefin if whole fish are being shipped, but what if they've already been processed into steaks or filets? What then?

A little over a year ago a couple of high school students from Manhattan pointed the way. They used DNA fingerprinting to identify samples of sushi at New York restaurants and found that 25% were misidentified.

Jacob Lowenstein and his colleagues develop a more sophisticated DNA barcode based on cytochrome C oxidase subunit I to distinguish among all tuna species in the genus Thunnus (the genus to which bluefin belongs). They sampled tuna sushi from 31 restaurants in Manhattan and Denver. Among the 68 samples they tested they found some that were from endangered tuna species, some that weren't what they said, and some that were a health hazard.

Five out of nine samples sold as a variant of "white tuna" were not albacore (T. alalunga), but escolar (Lepidocybium flavorunneum), a gempylid species banned for sale in Italy and Japan due to health concerns. Nineteen samples were northern bluefin tuna (T. thynnus) or the critically endangered southern bluefin tuna (T. maccoyii), though nine restaurants that sold these species did not state these species on their menus.

The take home message? I see two. First, Lowenstein and colleagues demonstrate yet again that DNA barcoding can be a useful tool in identifying commercially sold fish (and other products). Second, think twice next time you order a piece of maguro at your favorite sushi bar and ask yourself how confident you are that it's not bluefin (and that the folks who run your sushi bar would know the difference or care).

I mentioned a couple of days ago that the United States has joined the European Commission in supporting Monaco's proposal to list the Atlantic bluefin tuna on appendix I of CITES. Here's a key excerpt from Jane Lubchenco's¹ statement concerning the decision.

[W]e are sending a clear and definitive statement to the international community that the status quo is not acceptable.

According to Lubchenco's statement, populations of bluefin tuna have declined more than 70% in the last 40 years. Lubchenco holds out the possibility that the United States will withdraw its support for Monaco's resolution if November meetings of the international body managing bluefins adopts measures that would halt the decline, i.e., sustainable quotas for the fishery.

Given that the November meetings will involve the same cast of characters that have allowed bluefins to be overfished already, I would bet that the U.S. will continue its support for petition to list them on appendix I of CITES.

In early September, the European Commission backed an effort under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to suspend international trade in bluefin tuna from the Atlantic and Mediterranean. Specifically, the Commission voted to co-sponsor a resolution a proposal by Monaco to list Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin on appendix I of CITES.

Of the three appendices to CITES, appendix I imposes the tightest obligations on signatories. Here's how appendix I is described on the CITES site:

Appendix I lists species that are the most endangered among CITES-listed animals and plants (see Article II, paragraph 1 of the Convention). They are threatened with extinction and CITES prohibits international trade in specimens of these species except when the purpose of the import is not commercial (see Article III), for instance for scientific research.

In catching up on my e-mail recently, I came across this announcement from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service:

WASHINGTON, DC - Today [14 October], Tom Strickland, Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, announced that the United States supports a proposal submitted by the principality of Monaco to list the Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) in Appendix I of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES). CITES Appendix-I listing affords a species stringent protection and prohibits all international commercial trade.  The fifteenth regular meeting of the CITES parties is scheduled for March 13-24, 2010 in Doha, Qatar (CoP15). Strickland will lead the United States' delegation to CoP15, on behalf of the U.S. government (news release from FWS).

That's very good news. The Monterey Bay Aquarium sums the situation up bluntly: "Bluefin tuna are severely overfished in all oceans."

Avoid bluefin tuna--they're severely overfished and fishing gear used to catch them entangle sea turtles, seabirds and sharks and endanger their populations.

Bluefin tuna provide the world's most valuable sushi and the high demand for this fish has taken its toll. The Atlantic population has declined by nearly 90% since the 1970s. Bluefin are slow to mature and, unfortunately, many young fishes are caught before they have the chance to reproduce.

Please remember that the next time you're ordering sushi.

Judge Donald W. Molloy of the Federal District Court for Montana has been busy. A couple of weeks ago he denied a request that Defenders of Wildlife and other environmental groups made to stop the wolf hunt in Idaho. Today I read that Yellowstone grizzlies are being returned to the endangered species list.

Facing the combined pressures of habitat loss, hunters and climate change, 600 grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park are going back on the threatened species list under a federal court order issued Monday.

The ruling highlighted climate change's devastation to whitebark pine forests, which produce nuts that some grizzlies rely upon as a mainstay.

With hundreds of thousands of the trees dead or dying over the last two decades, bears striking out in search of new food sources increasingly are being shot in conflicts with humans.

"There is a connection between whitebark pine and grizzly survival," U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy wrote in Monday's ruling. (emphasis added; Associated Press)

Hunters started hunting wolves in some parts of Idaho a couple of weeks ago, and so far hunters aren't finding it easy. From the New York Times a few days ago:

Hunting and killing are not the same thing. Even as Idaho has sold more than 14,000 wolf-hunting permits, the first 10 days of the first legal wolf hunt here in decades have yielded only three reported legal kills. (Click here for a video from the Times.)

On 10 September, "[Judge] Donald W. Molloy of the Federal District Court for Montana, denied a request by environmentalists and animal welfare groups that he stop the hunts, in Montana and Idaho" (AP). Earlier this week I ran across this editorial:

The gray wolf is a top predator, an essential part of the ecosystem, a symbol of the West. And it's a symbol best displayed, not as pelts on a wall, but by packs in the wild.

Exterminated like vermin, a bounty on their heads, the gray wolf was hunted to extinction in the West. Reintroduced in central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming in 1995, the endangered species staged a remarkable, yet still incomplete, recovery. Now, due to the shortsighted decision by the Bush and Obama administrations to remove the wolf from the endangered species list in Idaho and Montana, that recovery is threatened.

...

There's no need for wolf slaughters disguised as "management plans." Wolves will manage quite well if just left alone. Hopefully, the judge will come to that conclusion.

You're probably thinking that editorial appeared in a Sierra Club publication or something like that. Well you'd be wrong. Click through to find out where it appeared.

From Environment News Service:

A new coalition of organizations, the Amphibian Survival Alliance, is being established in an attempt to conserve the world's vanishing frogs, toads and salamanders. Threats to these species are numerous - a deadly fungus, habitat loss, pollution, pesticides and climate change.

The alliance came together at the first Amphibian Mini Summit at the Zoological Society of London last week. The group includes amphibian specialists working in the wild as well as those in zoos, aquariums and botanical gardens.

"If we want to stop the amphibian extinction crisis, we have to protect the areas where amphibians are threatened by habitat destruction," says Claude Gascon, co-chair of the IUCN Amphibian Specialist Group. "One of the reasons amphibians are in such dire straits is because many species are only found in single sites and are therefore much more susceptible to habitat loss."

Federal authorities removed the gray wolf from the endangered species list in May. Yesterday, Idaho's Fish & Game Commission voted 4-3 to allow up to 220 wolves to be killed by hunters this fall (stories from the Missoulian, Boise Weekly, and the Spokesman Review). The three dissenting votes were from commissioners who wanted to allow more wolves to be taken.

Chairman Wayne Wright, one of the dissenters, declared, "Now's the time to do the right thing. ... Neither our state's economy, our ranchers, our sportsmen or our elk herds can wait any longer." (from the Spokesman Review article)

Idaho Fish & Game currently estimates that there are about 1020 in the state. The original recovery goal set by the Fish & Wildlife Service for Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming was only 300 wolves. Supporters of the hunt contend that the wolf population is now secure and can be hunted without endangering it. Opponents threaten legal action.

The season will start on the 1st of September in some parts of the state and run through December 31st.